Blue Eyes
by Lyrical Rex
Summary: Kaiba meets his long lost sister, and doesn't like her right away. But what if circumstances change, and he's the only one who can help her? COMPLETE. CONTINUED in Sun Treasure.
1. Math class

Author's note: 11/7: first fanfic ever being reworked. Mostly editing and deleting of things I will never get back to, namely shared memories and other things. This project didn't take as long as I anticipated, and I will hopefully have reworked all nineteen chapters by next week.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh or any of the characters or places. I do, however, think that I own Takara.  
  
She stepped into the hallway. The newest student of Domino High swept down the hall, long black hair hanging down her back, bright blue eyes searching the crowd of students she'd never seen before. As she passed, many of these students turned and whispered excitedly to each other about the New Girl. Seto Kaiba watched her pass, his own cold blue eyes narrowed out of disgust. There were already too many kids running around.  
  
- - -  
  
Sitting in her first class of the day, she could feel the eyes on her. She could hear the kids whispering, she could tell what they thought of her. Grinning at nothing in particular, she absentmindedly stared at the kid in front of her. He was short, with spiked hair, that was colored black and yellow with a hint of violet. All of a sudden she felt a cold presence pass by her. She looked up, to look into the cold blue eyes of the famous Seto Kaiba. As soon as the moment had come, it passed. Kaiba looked away and sat down at the desk two rows behind her and to the right. The teacher called attention, and introduced the new student. After she sat down, the kid in front of her turned around and introduced himself as Yugi Motou.

"Yugi Motou?" she inquired, now interested.  
  
He nodded.  
  
"The one who beat Pegasus!?"  
  
He nodded again.  
  
She cracked into a grin.  
  
"I'm Takara Isoda. I went to Duelist Kingdom too."  
  
"Nice name."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Takara started fiddling with her pencil, as the math teacher explained the work. The class was busy writing notes, and the only other person NOT taking notes was Seto Kaiba. "Takara Isoda." She looked up at the math teacher. She could tell that all the other kids were looking at her too. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes Ma'am. Just the one on the board." There was a chuckle from somewhere in the room.  
  
"Is there a reason why you aren't doing the work?" The teacher walked slowly and purposefully over. If anyone wasn't looking at her before, they were now.  
  
"Yes Ma'am." The teacher raised a questioning eyebrow. "The answer is the square root of thirteen." Silence.  
  
"Why is this a reason to not do the work?"  
  
"I see no need to do the work when the answer is perfectly clear," Takara answered. Utter silence.  
  
"Let's see if you're really that smart," the teacher said, writing a complex problem on the chalk board. Most of the students started doing the work on their paper, while others watched to see what Takara would do. Her hand was raised, along with Seto Kaiba's. "Isoda."  
  
"Negative 23."  
  
"Correct." The teacher wrote another complex problem on the board. Less people were writing this time. Both Takara and Kaiba's hands were raised. "Kaiba."  
  
"Sixty-nine times the square root of fifteen."  
  
"Correct." The teacher wrote another problem on the board. No one bothered to write it down. "Isoda?"  
  
"Negative one. No! Positive one-twenty-nine."  
  
"Correct," the teacher said. "Do you know what you did wrong the first time?"  
  
"Yes." Takara wrinkled her nose. "I thought the sixty-eight was a negative."  
  
"Very good," the teacher said, walking back to her desk.  
  
There was a laugh, quiet, but audible in the silence of the room. Every one looked at Kaiba.  
  
"Only an idiot would make such a simple mistake," he told the class.  
  
The teacher continued with the lesson.

- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - -- - - -- - - - -- - -

After class, Kaiba brushed by Takara without a word. Takara felt like biting his head off.  
  
"Wow," Yugi said. "What was that all about? It looked like you and Kaiba already know each other. The way you were making a contest in front of the class."  
Takara's eyes narrowed. Could it be. . .? No, it wasn't. She'd just have to keep looking.  
  
"Kaiba's a brat." Her nose wrinkled. She already hated the boy's guts.  
  
"What class do you have next?" Takara looked.  
  
"English. . . with Yamiko."  
  
"Me too! I can show you the way." Takara nodded.  
  
"I don't get why they're making us learn English, though. Perfectly useless."  
  
"You mean perfectly use FULL," Duke Devlin said, coming up behind them. "English is the international language of the day, just like Latin was way back then."  
  
"Why do you care so much about Latin?"  
  
"Because it's a cool language."  
  
Suddenly Duke looked at her as if he had just noticed her. "I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself." He held out his hand. "Duke Devlin, at your service."  
  
"Takara Isoda." She clasped his hand, but as she did, he fluidly turned it and brought the back of her hand to his mouth.  
  
"May I say you look absolutely stunning?" He let go of her hand. Takara leaned against a locker and started to giggle, which turned into laughter. "What?" Duke asked.  
  
"You obviously don't know how many boys use that line, but you pull it off better than anyone I've met so far." Takara lapsed into thoughts of her old life before moving out there, until she realized that the boys she'd been talking to had walked on without her.

"Isoda." She looked up into sharp blue eyes. "I advise that you stay out of my way , and off my locker, from now on," Kaiba said coldly. Takara stood up straight, and stuck out her tongue. Kaiba raised a single eyebrow. "That isn't much of a threat," he told her. Takara ran to catch up with Yugi and Duke, who had gone ahead so that they wouldn't have to deal with the angry Kaiba. She looked over her shoulder at Set-- Kaiba. He looked like he hated her as much as she hated him. Shaking her head, she caught up with Duke and Yugi. 


	2. History lessons

I don't own yugioh! Okay, so I changed Derek's eye color from the original... I just wanted him to be more like his cousin! . (notice, of course, I am assuming you've already read the story before I started the editing. Oh well.)

"Joey, meet Takara."  
  
"Hey," the blonde boy said.  
  
"Hey," Takara absentmindedly replied.  
  
She didn't notice the way Joey was gawking at her. Or the way that Duke smacked Joey for it. She looked around the room for a seat. When the bell rang, she walked away from the boys and sat down next to a girl with brown hair. The teacher called order to class. He introduced Takara, who was sitting next to Nari Ayika, known for being the hottest girl on campus.  
  
"Hey, I'm Nari." She smiled.  
  
"Hi Nari. I'm Takara." Takara smiled back, and then leaned back in her chair to play with her pen. Throughout the class, she hid that she knew perfectly well how to speak English, having lived there for most of her life. Kaiba had the best grades in this class, not surprising, really. He _did _have to use it for business...  
  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Takara remembered her aunt on her deathbed. She was weak, and dying slowly of leukemia. Takara held her hand, crying silently. Her aunt, seeing her cry, had said, "Don't cry. Your biggest challenges are yet to come."  
  
Takara had looked up, surprised at the strength behind those words. "What could be harder than watching this? Watching my only parent die?" Aunt Isoda looked away. She said:  
  
"When your mother had you and your brother, she didn't know she had twins. She didn't have the strength to keep both of you, or so your father thought. So I came." Sighing, she started again, slower, with a weaker voice. "Your mother died giving birth to a younger brother. Your father. . . in a car. . ." Takara hushed her. Aunt Isoda was quickly losing strength. "Go look for them," she said. "Look for your brothers."  
  
Takara was on her knees, next to the hospital bed, tears streaming from her eyes. It was Aunt Isoda's time. "Your twin, Seto . . . He has eyes just like yours." Isoda smiled and pinched her great niece's cheek with the last of her strength. Takara couldn't even feel the hands there. "Go look for them in your hometown, Domino.  
  
"I will," Takara replied, tears going rapidly down her face. Aunt Isoda closed her eyes and took her last breath. "I –"  
  
"Isoda!" There was smack on her desk, a ruler. "I will not tolerate sleeping in my class," Yamiko scolded sternly. Takara straightened her back. She could just hear a certain annoying prat of a CEO smirking at her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - -

Seto Kaiba. That was his name, right? Where had she heard it before? Seto sounded so familiar. . .  
  
Takara was walking blindly through the mass of people during the first break of the day. She had ignored Yugi, Joey, and Duke when they came over to her after English, because she was way to busy in her thoughts. She only had a few clues as to who her brother was. He had sapphire blue eyes, exactly like her own, and his first name started with S. Wait a minute, she thought. Didn't Aunt Isoda say his name? What was it? Why the hell can't I remember? Walking blindly, she continued until she bumped into some one, knocking all his books down. She snapped out of what ever you call what she was in. "I'm so sorry," she apologized, helping the boy pick up his books.  
  
"It's okay," the boy said, standing up. Takara stood up too, handing him his books, accidently looking into familiar green eyes. The boy hadn't noticed this yet, and was busy holding all his books in one hand, and brushing his hair out of his face. His very familiar GREEN hair. Green hair, cut long in the front, and short and spiky in the back, even as it had been in Junior High.  
  
"DEREK?" Takara voiced her disbelief.  
  
"Yeah?" He noticed who he was talking to.  
  
"Omigod, Derek, it's you!" Derek lifted the books over Takara's head so she could hug him. "I haven't seen you in ages!"  
  
"It's nice to see you too, Taka," Derek replied. Then he winced as Takara applied more pressure. (How did she do that? She had already rendered Derek unable to breath . . . ) "Taka," he wheezed. "Let go. . .please. You're cutting off my circulation." Reluctantly, Takara complied.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Takara asked. "Weren't you going to go to the highschool they built? And hey, you have a lip ring!"  
  
"I was going to," Derek said, "But my cousin called and I came out here, to help him with his shop. And yeah, I got the lip ring last year."  
  
"And who's your cousin?" Takara asked him, following him toward his locker.  
  
"Duke Devlin." Takara started cracking up. "What?"  
  
"No wonder he uses the same cheesy lines as you!" she said. "You know. . . the one where you kiss the girl's hand."  
  
"Yeah," Derek said, grinning. "I learned it from him." Takara laughed some more, and had an image of the young green haired kid using the same line on her. "What are YOU doing here?"  
  
Takara went solemn. "My godmother died, and she wanted me to live in my birth-city."  
  
"The nice old lady who didn't ground you after throwing away your _meth_?"  
"I'd prefer not to think about it," she muttered. "I am so over _that_." He bowed his head in mourning for the nice old lady who had raised one of his best friends.  
  
"Hey look, it's Duke and his pals!" Derek waved them over. "I take it that you've met Duke."  
  
"Just before our English class." Man, Derek had a short attention span. One minute he's mourning, the next he's waving like nothings the matter. I wish I could bounce back like that. Now that she was thinking of it, the _crystal_ had taken a couple years out of her life. She was glad to have Aunt Isoda there to support her.  
  
"Stop thinking of meth," Derek muttered.  
  
"How do you know I was thinking of it?"  
  
"I remember that you tend to remember what ever we were talking about, whether or not you really want to."  
  
"Hey cuz," Duke greeted Derek, giving him a high five. "Hey Takara." Duke smiled at her. If she was attracted to him, she would've swooned. His smile was _very _nice. But in fact, she wasn't attracted. She was, in fact, repulsed by his way too cocky attitude. And she was annoyed by the group of cheerleaders that followed him down the hall. "D-U-K-E! He's the only one for me!" _God those things are so annoying_. Wait, where did THAT thought come from? She looked around. She could've sworn that she hadn't thought it.  
  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
  
God, those things are so annoying, Kaiba thought, passing by Duke's cheerleaders. He then ran into the cheerleaders who worshiped him, so he promptly turned around and walked the other way. Devlin doesn't seem bothered by it . . . Kaiba took the long way to his next class, sciences. Sadly, his cheerleading crew had memorized his schedule and reached there before him. It took him precious time to weave through the crowd of girls trying not to get glomped. As hard as he tried, he got glomped anyways.  
  
He sat at the lab table at the back of the science class. Opening his laptop, he checked the time. He had a good five minutes before the next bell rang. He worked the five minutes furiously, managing to fire fifty inefficient workers and replace them with forty new ones. Satisfied, he closed his laptop and put it away in his briefcase in time to see the other students file in and sit at their respective tables. The last students to enter the classroom were Duke and Derek Devlin, and Isoda. His eyes widened in realization of something. After a quick count, he found that there were thirty-one students before Isoda came, thirty-two with her. He was the only one with out a lab partner, which meant. . . Kaiba groaned audibly.  
  
"What's wrong, Mr. Kaiba?" Mr. Wung (who is, by the way, Chinese) asked him.  
  
"I won't have a lab partner."  
  
Some students sighed dramatically, having been through this a few times, at the beginning of the year and whenever a new student came.  
  
"You can't help having a lab partner. The chair next to you is the only empty one in the classroom." Kaiba looked around. So it was.  
  
"Can it be someone other than Isoda?" His voice was low and sultry, his version of a whine.  
  
"No. Everyone else is settled with their lab partners." Most of the guys thought that Kaiba was being crazy, not wanting to partner with such a hot girl. Only some of the guys in the math class made a connection to what had happened that morning.  
  
"Come on, I don't have to sit there. . ." Most of the girls thought Takara was crazy for not wanting to sit with a hot guy like Kaiba. The rest, again, remembered what had happened in math.  
  
The teacher stood firm. "No one is switching partners in this class. Takara, you will sit with Kaiba." Grumbling, she swung her backpack over her shoulder and walked over to Kaiba.  
  
"I hope you're in none of my classes after this," Kaiba hissed at her under his breath. "This day has been Hell for me."  
  
"I totally agree." 

- - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -- - - - - -

Their wish was not granted. When Takara reached history, she was dismayed to find that she had to sit directly behind Kaiba. Groaning, Takara swung her backpack onto the desk. "Stop making a racket," Kaiba growled without turning around.  
  
"Do you want the racket to hit your head, Seto?" She asked, purposely trying to provoke him by using his name.  
  
"I doubt you have an aim, Isoda." He turned around to say something to her, when he was flicked in the head with . . . a die. He glared at Takara, who in turn glared at Duke. Duke smiled innocently.  
  
"The hell with that," Takara said, settling into her desk. Both she and Kaiba remained silent the entire time. They were learning about Japan's Revolution. The teacher asked a question.  
  
"What was the main rift between the emperor and the samurai?"  
  
Instantly, Kaiba and Takara's hands went up.  
  
"Isoda?"  
  
"The emperor was in love with the ways of the West, while the samurai disapproved of it."  
  
"A very good way of putting it. Now, what did the Americans want to gain from the exchange with Japan?" The teacher asked. Kaiba and Takara's hands shot up right away.  
  
"Kaiba?"  
  
"Wealth."  
  
"Correct."  
  
"Of course you're familiar with that, aren't you, Seto?" Takara whispered in his ear. Kaiba growled, both at the insult and being called by his first name.  
  
By this time, the teacher had already finished the question, so on impulse, both Takara and Kaiba's hands shot up. The kids in their math class groaned, seeing a familiar pattern. Kaiba was chosen.  
  
"Could you repeat the question?" Damn Isoda. If she hadn't been distracting me. . .  
  
"You think I'm distracting?" Takara asked. "Well, how about now?" She started flicking the back of his head with her finger. Kaiba was annoyed, but then. . . did she just read his mind?!  
  
"Stop it, Isoda," he growled, forgetting that he had most of the class' attention. Takara ignored him, and started to flick his neck with her sharp nail.  
  
"Are you going to answer the question, Kaiba?"Kaiba's face reddened, but he didn't know if it was from embarassment or anger. He wondered why no one noticed what Takara was doing.  
  
"I'm sorry, but the answer has slipped my mind."  
  
"Okay, anyone else?"  
  
The teacher called on Takara, who raised her free hand. She got the answer correct.  
  
"You're playing dirty," Kaiba said. _So?_ His eyes widened. He hadn't heard the voice out loud, but he knew it was Takara's. "Stop messing with my head."  
  
"What?" Takara asked. Her eyes widened in shock, when she realized what he was talking about. Was it possible that Seto was the boy she was looking for?

A/N: Okay, so this wasn't the best chapter . . . I don't know too much about Japan's history, and in the history class I used information from the movie The Last Samurai. I do not own The Last Samurai.


	3. Community service

Disclaimer: I do not own yugioh. And I have no idea what type of classes they have in Japan, so do not yell at me if I'm wrong.  
  
Kaiba was infuriated. What was up with this girl and torturing him?! By the end of History, Takara had drawn blood. Not a lot, but there was blood. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed at her, as she stuck the finger with blood in her mouth.  
  
"It's the easiest way to get the blood off my finger," she said, grinning evilly. Kaiba ignored her the rest of the period until lunch. Or, at least that was what he hoped would happen. "Seto. . . I. . . You're bleeding a little more than I intended."  
  
Groaning, he felt the back of his neck. A little more?! His neck was sticky with blood. He raised his hand. "Yes Kaiba?"  
  
"I need to go to the nurse's office."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I need to."  
  
"That's not a reason." Sighing, Kaiba got out of his seat.  
  
"Is this a good enough reason for you?" Kaiba showed the man the back of his neck.  
  
"Oh my. . . Yes, take a pass. Takara, go with him. Take his briefcase, if you will. Lunch is due to start in a few minutes anyway." Sighing, Takara got up, and followed Kaiba out the door. As soon as they got out, and the door closed, Kaiba started yelling at her.  
  
"Why the hell did you do that?!"  
  
Takara grinned wickedly. "Because," she said simply. She walked off in the direction they were supposed to go. "You coming? Or do you want to stain your collar?"  
  
Sighing in defeat, and because she still had his briefcase, Kaiba followed her. "Are you sure you know where the office is?"  
  
"Nope, haven't got a clue."  
  
"Well maybe I should go on my own." He held out his hand.  
  
"What, you think I'm going to give you your briefcase?" Takara grinned. Kaiba growled. She bolted.  
  
Kaiba chased her around the school, growling about how Takara was an idiotic moron, trying to steal his briefcase.  
  
_This is fun_. Kaiba was so startled to hear that, he stopped running and crashed into the lockers.

- - - - - - – - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - -

Hey, this is fun, Takara thought. She looked over her shoulder, but Kaiba wasn't chasing her anymore. He was on the floor, a huge bump forming on his forehead. She grinned. Putting down her bookbag and his briefcase, she hauled him to his feet by his collar. "Come on, the nurses office is right there." Kaiba growled and pushed her away. He stalked over to it. "I have the pass," she reminded him. She picked up her bag and his briefcase, and ran over to him, grinning evilly.  
  
"You enjoy torturing me." She guessed that was supposed to be a question that came out as a statement.  
  
She grinned again.  
  
"You're too happy."  
  
"There's no such thing as being too happy."  
  
By this time they had gotten to the nurses office. "Kaiba, what's wrong?" the nurse asked. Everyone knew who Kaiba was. Kaiba pointed at his bruised forehead, and then showed off the scabbing cut that Takara had given him. "Oooo," the nurse winced. "Sit down on that chair." She turned to Takara. "You can go back to class now, dear."  
  
Takara grinned and walked out the door. Kaiba hoped this was the last he would see of her, but it turns out that all she did was wash her hands. She came back saying that it was disgusting how much smoke was in the bathroom.  
  
Takara sat in a chair across the room from Kaiba. Grinning at him, she took the brief case and put it on her lap. Kaiba glared at her, but couldn't do anything that the nurse wouldn't see. She opened the briefcase. Why didn't I lock it? Kaiba wondered. She took his laptop out of the metal brief case, and placed it on top of it. "You don't know my password," Kaiba told her. "You can't get in."  
  
"Are you so sure?" Takara asked. She turned it around and showed Kaiba her handiwork. "Computer skills are more useful than English." She turned it back to her, and worked on it, as the nurse came in to clean his cut. Takara was a strange one, Kaiba thought.  
  
I can't believe I forgot to do this before, Takara thought. Oooo, integrated wireless networking. That made things easier. Skillfully, she hacked into the school's computer mainframe. She pulled out the student files, and wondered what to search for first. "Lets start with the eye color," she muttered. Search: Eye color, blue. 300/3000. Blue eyes are a minority here. "Now lets see. . ." Search: First name starts with S. fifteen. Search: birth date Oct. 25. One. Grinning, Takara pulled up the file. Her eyes widened at the results. Wordlessly, she erased her tracks and put the computer away. At just that moment, the lunch bell rang.  
  
As soon as the bell rang, Takara left without a word to Kaiba. Fine by me, Kaiba thought, looking at his briefcase. "You can go now," the nurse announced. Finally, Kaiba thought. He picked up his briefcase and walked out the door to the lunch room. Once he got there, he took his laptop out and set it on the table. Let's see what the girl was doing. . . after a couple minutes, he thought, this girl knows how to cover her tracks, now doesn't she? A few minutes later, he was still trying to track her. He finally found out that Takara had hacked into the school's computer and searched for someone. He pulled up the file she was looking at. "Kaiba," he heard the principal say. Looking up, he saw two kids standing behind the principal, a brunette and a blonde. "I need to ask you something. . ."  
  
"What? Kaiba asked, putting away the computer. He'd look at that later.

--------- - -- - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - --

The rest of the day was a blur for Takara. She realized that her birthday was Friday when she met Tea and Tristan. She realized that it was the twentieth (for some reason), and that Friday would be her sixteenth birthday. Kaiba was in Takara's Japanese and gym classes, and they ended up making a contest out of Kendo as well. By the end of the day, Takara was sick of Seto.  
  
"Hey, Taka," Derek called, catching up to her. He noticed how she kept fidgeting with her foot "Is there anything on your mind?"  
  
"Of course there is. . ." Takara trailed off, staring straight in front of her, at nothing. Duke walked over and draped his arm over her shoulder. On instinct, Takara shrugged his arm off and elbowed up wards, stopping just as she remembered who he was. She smiled strainedly up at him. "Sorry. . ."  
  
"It's ok," Duke said, flashing one of his stunning smiles. Takara edged away towards Derek. She felt safer there.  
  
"How was your first day?" asked Tea.  
  
"It was good," Takara replied.  
  
"What was gym class all about?" Takara blushed a little. The Kendo wasn't as prominent as math class, but apparently some people had noticed Kaiba and Takara's rivalry in there.  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about," Takara said smoothly, tossing her long raven hair over her shoulder, and grinning. "Oh yeah, Friday's my birthday. I'm gonna be sixteen."  
  
"Congratulations!" Tea said. She looked like she was about to hug Takara, but thought better of it.  
  
"Yeah, that's cool," Tristan added.  
  
"Who's turning sixteen?" asked an accented voice behind her. She turned to see a boy with white hair and reddish brown eyes. She half raised her hand, then held it out for him to shake.  
  
"I'm Takara," she introduced herself.  
  
"I'm Ryou," he said. "I'm in your history class." Takara smiled, remembering what she had done to Kaiba. "What happened to Kaiba?"  
  
"A bug or something bit him." Takara grinned. "Serves him right. He's the biggest jackass I've ever. . ."  
  
"That's her, Mister Principal." There's something wrong with that man, Takara thought. What kind of principal makes the students call him that?  
  
"Mr. Principal" said, "Takara Isoda! Come over here right now." There was something wrong here. . .  
  
Takara smiled at the others, then turned around to face the menacing voice. The principal was with two upperclassmen, saying, "Are you sure this is the girl?" The brunette girl nodded, while the blonde boy smiled at her evilly. Derek came with Takara.  
  
"Those kids pick on any new kid that comes here a month before any major holiday," Derek whispered to her. "And you came at the worst time. Halloween."  
  
"Isoda, Tommy and Tammy here," the principal said, indicating the upperclassmen, "are saying that they witnessed you defacing school property. And on your first day too! You should be ashamed of yourself." Takara raised her right eyebrow slightly.  
  
"Yeah," Tammy sniffled. Snob, Takara thought. "I was coming back from the bathroom the class before lunch, when I saw her breaking into his locker." She pointed at Tommy. "At first, I thought that it was her locker, but then I found out that six lockers in a row were broken into and destroyed."  
  
"Where are these lockers?" Takara asked smartly.  
  
"You know very well where they are!" Tommy yelled. "They're the ones outside the nurse's office!" Obviously, Tammy had been to the bathroom, and saw her and Kaiba going to the nurse's office. They were talking about the lockers Kaiba had run into.  
  
"I talked to your teacher, and he said that you accompanied Kaiba to the nurse's office. I asked Kaiba about this, and he denied that you walked him the entire way, leaving him outside the office claiming to return to class." Typical Kaiba, Takara fumed. She felt a cold pair of eyes on her, and she looked over her shoulder at Kaiba, who grinned and gave her a thumbs up. She made a face at him.

- - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -

"I told you, it wasn't me!" Takara tried to convince Matron. Matron shook her head.  
  
"I don't know you well enough to know if you're telling the truth," the old woman said. In some ways she reminded Takara of her great-aunt. She was a kind gentle lady, who loved children and wasn't too hard on them. "I'm going to have to punish you."  
  
"No," Takara said, although she wasn't sure what it would be. She'd only moved there late on Friday.  
  
"Your new curfew time is seven thirty. You will have absolutely no sweets, and if you break either of these rules, kitchen duty for a week."  
  
"But I can't cook!" Takara protested.  
  
"Your aunt taught you, I'm sure." Takara knew how to prepare simple dishes, but those weren't even remotely good. "She wouldn't let a person who couldn't cook beans live in her house."  
  
Takara groaned. "But I already have community service!" After futilely arguing, Takara decided just to go through with the punishment. It could be worse, she thought, shrugging. 


	4. The second day

Disclaimer: I don't own YUGIOH! Alright?!

When Matron rang the morning bell on Tuesday, Takara rolled out of bed, groaning. They wake up earlier here than in America, she thought. She quickly changed into her school uniform, and went downstairs for breakfast. "TAKA!!!" As soon as she hit the bottom floor, about a dozen little kids tried to wrap their arms around her legs and waist. Ten succeeded in pulling her to the floor where the smaller orphans jumped her.  
  
"Hey," she smiled at the kids. Slowly she tried to untangle herself, already knowing it was a futile attempt.  
  
"Look what I made!" A little blonde girl said, holding out a paper crane.  
  
"How pretty, Kimi," Takara said, taking it in her hand. Takara dropped it, though, when Jamie, a toddler, stepped on her stomach, knocking the air out of her.  
  
"Children, children!" Takara heard the matron call. "It's time to eat breakfast!"  
  
Takara grinned weakly at them, showing her lack of oxygen. Suddenly, they all got up, laughing.  
  
"Your face is blue!" a kid yelled. Takara got up and brushed herself off. She was the oldest kid in the orphanage, being five years older than the next. As a result, it was like she was wading in a pool of children. The smaller ones attached themselves to her legs, while the older ones led the way to the breakfast table.  
  
"Mmm... Oatmeal," she said, grinning. "My favorite!"  
  
"I thought you said bacon was your favorite," little Teany asked.  
  
"Yeah, that too," Takara told the little girl.  
  
"But you said that about eggs!" another boy commented.  
  
"Hard boiled, scrambled, sunny side up, or even raw!" Kendal added. Takara grinned.  
  
"I like everything!" Takara declared. The kids giggled.  
  
"Don't forget your blessings," Matron said, sitting at the head of the table. They bowed their heads and said grace, after which Takara practically gulped down her food. She grabbed her bag and bolted out the door, yelling to the younger kids to never be as late as she was getting.

- - - -- – - -- - - - - - - -- - - - - --

Takara ran into math class all sweaty and slammed herself into her seat. She was panting hard.  
"Hey Takara," Yugi said, turning around. Takara grinned at him just as the bell rang. The teacher wasn't in yet, so Takara decided that she should just tell Yugi about her dream the night before.  
  
"I had the weirdest dream last night," she started. "I dreamed I had sixteen brothers, and sixteen sisters. It was just bizarre. I had sixteen of just about everything." Her blue eyes shone brightly as she said all this stuff. "And then I woke up, and it was really late. Actually, I woke on time, except that the kids. . ." she stopped. She smiled, hoping that Yugi hadn't noticed what she'd said.  
  
Yugi, who was listening with rapt attention, asked, "What kids?"  
  
"It's nothing," Takara said, taking out her homework. Yugi noticed the drawings on her folder.  
  
"Can I see that?" he asked a little shyly. Takara handed it to him. Yugi studied it. They were hand drawn sketches of eyes, of all different shapes, but there were more of one type. He looked at Takara, who was busy erasing marks on her paper. They were her eyes. He looked down again, and opened the folder. He saw many sketches and drawings of kids on the looseleaf paper. They varied in age, from three to ten, and they were all in wacky poses, one toddler standing on a tricycle, a pair of hands with unseen origins holding the boy up. Actually, it looked like the hands were taking the boy down, and the boy was refusing to go down. He flipped through some more pages, and a few more pages later, he found a life sized picture of the eyes. He noticed something. The eyes looked very familiar. . .  
  
While Yugi trailed off in thought, Takara snatched the folder out of his hand. "You know what? I'm going to use this as blackmail to get you to talk about those kids," Yugi told her.  
  
"What kids?" she asked. The teacher took roll, and then she went on with the lesson. Takara wasn't listening, as she was busy drawing on the paper in front of her. She liked drawing eyes, and soon had a collection of eyes from people around her. Yugi's eyes were big and round, while Terri's eyes (the girl who sits on Takara's left) were narrowed into slits as she concentrated. She pulled out a small mirror, which she used expertly to see the eyes of the people behind her, as they were intent on the lesson. Except one. Kaiba was leaning onto his desk, looking bored as hell. Honestly, why was he here anyways? Takara took advantage of the moment of boredom to sketch his eyes. As soon as she was done a couple minutes later, she looked at it, thinking that it was really good, and that she was getting better at drawing eyes. Then she frowned a little. Those eyes. . . they looked just like. . .  
  
"Isoda, are you paying attention?"  
  
Her head pulled up to see the teacher, looking at her from the blackboard where an equation was there.  
  
"No Ma'am." Most of the kids were still not over the shock of Takara's boldness and truthfulness.  
  
"What are you writing there?" the teacher asked.  
  
"Nothing, Ma'am." It was the truth. The teacher held out her hand. Reluctantly, Takara walked over to her and handed over the paper. The teacher looked it over, and handed it back to Takara.  
  
"Put it away. If I see you doing this in class again, I'll throw it away." Takara nodded and went back to her seat to put the drawing away. She carefully avoided the feet of the immature boys that stuck out at her, trying to trip her. "Now who has the answer to this problem?" A flurry of hands went up. So _this_ is what they were working on. Takara and Kaiba's hands both went up. "Keiri?"  
  
"Twenty?"  
  
"I'm sorry, that's wrong. Taichi?"  
  
"Twenty-two?"  
  
"Nope." Apparently, everyone who did the work got either of those answers, because only Takara and Kaiba's hands were left up.  
  
"Kaiba?"  
  
"Twenty-one and twenty-eight hundredths."  
  
"Exactly." She wrote another problem on the board. Kaiba and Takara's hands flew upward. "Isoda?" The class groaned, seeing another pattern.

- - - - -- - -- -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- -- - - - - -

"Soo... what kids?" Yugi asked, still trying to get the information out of her.  
  
Takara grinned, still feeling great about having won her match. "I'm not telling anything."  
  
"I'll tell about your drawings."  
  
"Still no go." Takara thought a moment. "I'll tell you if YOU tell me YOUR biggest secret."  
  
Yugi hesitated a moment. "Okay." They kept walking down the hallway towards their English class.  
  
"The kids... are the ones at the orphanage." Yugi looked a little shocked. "The matron is distantly related to me. She's my great-aunt's third cousin. Until I find my brothers or get adopted, yeah right, I stay there. Until I'm eighteen. In my calculations, that is two years and four days. Three, days."  
  
Yugi blinked. "Do you know who your brothers are?"  
  
"I have an idea. . ." Takara trailed off. "Your turn to share."  
  
"Oh, um, see this puzzle?" Yugi pointed at the pyramid shaped thing around his neck. She nodded, telling him to go on. "Well, there's a spirit that lives in there. The spirit of an Egyptian Pharaoh." Takara blinked.  
  
"Wow." Takara opened the door to the classroom. "That is. . . something." Grinning, she left Yugi, and went over to talk about whatever girls talk about with Nari. What DO girls talk about anyways? Yugi wondered, hoping she wouldn't talk about Yami.

---- -- - - - -- - - - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - - --

"Duke likes you," Nari told Takara on her arrival. "I'm a little jealous, but he's a bit of a jackass, after all. A totally cute jackass. . ."  
  
Takara grinned. "Yeah well... it's not like I'm going to run and join his group of cheerleaders." Nari laughed with her. Mr. Yamiko silenced the classroom, and started the lesson. Of course, Takara knew what he was talking about, but she still pretended to take notes. . .  
  
"Ms. Isoda?" Yamiko inquired.  
  
"Hmm?" She looked up from the apparent gibberish that she was writing.  
  
"Are you doing your notes?"  
  
"Yes. . ." Mr. Yamiko held out his hand to take the paper from her. It was actually her own computer code that she had used to hack Seto's computer. She was writing a better way to cover her tracks, knowing that Seto already knew what she had been doing.  
  
"What language is this in, Isoda?" Yamiko asked.  
  
"Computer script," she replied blandly, as though it were perfectly normal.  
  
Yamiko nodded. "Do you have any idea what we're talking about?" Takara shook her head no.  
  
"Say this sentence in English: I will not write computer programs in class." Of course, Yamiko said this in Japanese.  
  
Takara repeated him in perfect, unacccented English. There was a hush as the teacher straightened, and a slight buzz as Yamiko went back to writing on the board, but he silenced it with a glare. "Isoda, no more programs in class." He dropped the paper into the trash can on the way.  
  
"That was smart," Nari told Takara sarcastically.  
  
"It was, wasn't it?" Takara replied, staring at the table.

- -- - -- - - - - - -- - - - -- - -

"How's your neck, Seto?" Takara asked, putting her bag down.  
  
"What do you think?" Kaiba glared at her murderously. Takara acted oblivious to this. Instead she asked,  
"What're you doing with the comp?"  
  
"Work," he said. He remembered something. "Why did you look up. . ."  
  
"Because," she said shortly, not wanting to breech the subject. She grinned, looking at the back of his neck, which was bandaged a bit heavily. "That's going to leave a scar," she remarked.  
  
"It's your fault," Kaiba growled.  
  
"It's not as bad as this," Takara said, lifting the hair off her neck, revealing a red scar that ran from somewhere behind her left ear to her back. Takara grinned, seeing Kaiba's slightly shocked expression. "I was fourteen. One of my best friends was. . ." she was going to say helping to make crystal, but decided not to. ". . . cooking something. in the kitchen." Duh, where else would you cook. "I slipped and fell, hitting right here," she ran her fingers along the scar, "Against the table. Well, we didn't see going to the hospital as an option," because making crystal is illegal, "So he just patched it up by himself." She smiled, remembering the kid's soft hands wiping the wound, and patching it up clumsily with gauze. "Derek was so mad at him. . ." she trailed off. "I had known him for all of two weeks when that happened." Takara chuckled. "He moved a few months later. Haven't seen him since." She glanced in Kaiba's direction, but did say anything as she moved her chair away, and pretended to write notes on genetics. Wung didn't notice that Takara was actually taking notes. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -  
"You coming to the Kame shop later?" Yugi asked Takara.  
  
"I dunno," she looked over the little group that sat at the lunch table with her. "I'm grounded, plus community service." Takara wrinkled her nose. "Damn Tammy, damn Tommy, damn Kaiba. . ."  
  
"What does Kaiba have to do with anything?" Joey asked Takara, not having heard about her punishment.  
  
She smiled sarcastically. "If Kaiba had told the truth, than I wouldn't have been accused of vandalism, therefore no community service needed."  
  
"Well, it WAS your fault that you got me into the nurse's office anyways," said a cold, smirking voice behind them.  
  
"Oh piss off, Kaiba," Takara said loudly, without turning around.  
  
"Why should I?" Kaiba asked, sliding onto the lunch bench next to Takara.  
"I know you hated doing that as much as I hate you for doing that," Takara said, not looking at him. Takara had the full attention of the group by now, but they went back to talking about the paper.  
  
"I need to talk to you."  
  
"About what?" Takara said, turning her head so Kaiba hear her better. "Hacking? Or defacing school property?" She still avoided looking at his face.  
  
"One or the other," he said, "whichever you prefer to talk about first."  
  
Takara turned and this time looked him in the eye. "Call me at seven-thirty," she told him. "_Exactly_ seven-thirty." She got up from the table.  
  
"What's your number?" Kaiba asked her, grabbing her arm.  
  
"I left it on your laptop." She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and walked off.  
  
Seven-thirty, Kaiba thought. I don't think that I'm going to call.


	5. Calling late and getting sick

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh, duh.

A/N: This is the only chapter in the entire plot line of Takara that she has a cell phone. Disregard the fact that she apparently doesn't have a cell phone anywhere else in this story... or just say that she got it confisticated. .

After school, Seto tried to talk to Takara, but she had to go do community service, helping trash service or something. He found out that she was an orphan, living in the orphanage, using his computer the same way she did before. He was planning on talking to her in person, but when he got to the orphanage, Matron turned him away, telling him to call her like Takara had said. Besides, she was grounded and didn't want visitors anyways. It was seven-thirty-one when he called, but Matron told him Takara "couldn't come to the phone." Hours of headaches for nothing, Kaiba thought.  
  
"Nii-sama?" he heard his brother say. Kaiba turned to see his little brother, Mokuba, standing there in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at him quizzically with big blue eyes. They were a baby blue, not the same deep shade of sapphire as his own.  
  
"What is it, Mokuba?" Kaiba asked, trying to keep his patience.  
  
Mokuba opened his mouth, but closed it. "Never mind, I think you're busy."  
  
"No really, what is it Mokuba?"  
  
"I... uh..." Mokuba thought of how to word whatever he was going to say. "My friend is having a Halloween party on Friday. I was wondering if I could go?"  
  
Why would anyone have a Halloween party a week before Halloween? Kaiba wondered.  
  
"I mean, it IS your birthday and all. . . " Kaiba looked sharply at Mokuba. He winced.  
  
"Oh, I forgot that."  
  
"No way!" Mokuba gasped, appalled. "There's no WAY that you could forget your own birthday!"  
  
"Well I did," Kaiba muttered.

"It's late, Mokuba," he told the boy. "It's nine o'clock. Time for bed."  
  
"Okay." Mokuba bounded off. "Was that a yes?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
-------  
"Hey Takara," Duke said, leaning against the locker next to hers as she put away some books after fourth period.  
  
"What do you want, Duke?" Takara asked, slamming her locker shut. She started walking down the hall. Duke caught up to her.  
  
"You busy Friday night?"  
  
"As far as I know, no."  
  
"Well then, want to go see a movie?" Duke was still smiling, confident that she wouldn't say no.  
  
"It's okay," she said, "I'm grounded."  
  
"You sure?" Duke sounded slightly disappointed.  
  
"I'm positive," Takara reassured him. It was lunch, and Takara was blessed in that Kaiba hadn't gone to school. "Hold on, my cell's ringing. . ." Takara went outside to answer it.  
  
"Moshi--" Takara was cut off by cool voice saying,  
  
"Where were you yesterday when I came to get you?"  
  
"I was busy doing the community service that you got me into," Takara told him.  
  
"I called you when you said I should."  
  
"You called too LATE, Seto." Kaiba bristled at being addressed like that.  
  
"It was only a minute!"  
  
"I don't give a shit," Takara said, turning off her phone. With that super rude ending, she went back to eat lunch with her friends, sincerely hoping that what she knew wasn't true.  
  
----------  
  
Takara had done community service by helping the trash service. She inadvertently got sick after two days working there.  
  
"Taka? You look green," little Teany had told her at breakfast.  
  
Takara FELT green. Despite Matron telling her she should stay home instead of going to school, she did anyways. Takara always walked to school, or ran, depending on the time. Today she knew she was going to be late, but walked anyways, because of her weak feeling stomach. Her face stayed pale green throughout the first two periods of the day. But during science, she took out her folder, while Kaiba asked her why she had hung up on him the other day. Takara scooted back her chair, and threw up on his shoes.  
  
----------  
  
"That was just smart," Derek told her over the phone. Takara was sitting in bed, the little kids playing in her room. None of them were paying attention to her as they had the first couple hours she had been at home.  
  
"Well, you threw up all over me when you first did your pot."  
  
"Well. . ." Derek paused, not knowing what to say to that. "I'm OVER that!" he practically yelled in her ear. "Stop talking about drugs!!"  
  
"You brought up the crystal," Takara said, cooly. "At least I didn't smoke like you did. I hated hanging out with you when you were all smoking pot and the ciggaretes." She wrinkled her nose. "Smoke is so disgusting."  
  
"Well, I quit for you!" "We're both clean now," she said, "but I don't know about. . ."  
  
A wail from Jamie was heard, and Kimi came in to tell her that Jamie wanted to only play with her. Sighing, Takara said, "I gotta go. A kid wants to play with me. Bye."  
  
"Wait," Derek said. "I don't want you to ever bring up the drugs again."  
  
"I won't," Takara said. "I don't want to remember them." Hanging up, she was glad that Derek had said that. She was sure that talking about the turbulent times that brought them together would tear them apart.  
  
"Don't grow up like I did," she told Jamie, bouncing the baby on her bed. 


	6. Happy Sweet Sixteen

Discaimer: I do not own Yugioh

A/N: Of course, this is where the famous change in style comes in. I had originally not wanted to do this, but, yaknow, I kinda wanted character insights.

Takara's POV  
  
I woke up on my birthday still sick to the stomach. As I opened my eyes, I threw up all over my sheets. As soon as I sat up in bed, I banged my head against the upper bunk. "Happy sweet sixteen, Takara," I muttered. At least I felt better now that I didn't have anything in my stomach.  
  
I changed into my street clothes, pulling on my favorite jeans and ribbed tank top, slapping a studded leather wrist cuff over the burn on my left wrist. After putting my sheets and pajamas into the wash, I checked the time and groaned. 1 o'clock in the morning. I sighed, and decided that even though it was raining, I should just go for a jog. As I pulled on a hoodie, I remembered waking up every morning before Aunt Isoda died, unable to sleep out of guilt over lying to her. Lying about my grades, where I'd been, my long periods of absences. . .  
  
I slipped a pair of headphones over my neck, then hesitated before I pocketed a small perfume bottle, just in case some kid raided my room while I was gone, which was unlikely, but still. As I opened the door, I stopped. At first I didn't know why I'd stopped, but then I recognized a sound I hadn't heard in months. A sound I hadn't WANTED to hear in months. Oh god, I thought, as the familiar motorcycle roar came down the street. Let it be another bike, I pleaded. Let it not be his. . .  
  
There was a small crash and a distant sounding tinkle of broken glass as I stood frozen. It was only after the motorcycle roar faded down the street, did I dare check the damage downstairs. I checked the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room. All were unharmed. Oh no, not the kids' playroom. Anything but. . .  
  
I slowly opened the door. It was cold in there, a sure sign something was wrong. The floor was cleared, all the toys put in their respective bins off to the sides of the room, courteousy of Matron. The biggest window in the room was broken, glass strewn everywhere around the rock on the floor. Rain hit my face, stinging my eyes, as I made my way to the rock. The rock was the size of my fist, and to it was tied a piece of paper. Slowly, my fingers trembling, I untied the note. Letting the rock fall to the ground, I ran. I ran as hard and as fast as I could.  
  
Derek's POV  
  
What I was doing up at two in the morning I'll never know. But there I was, on a school day no less, walking around on the wet streets, thinking. Takara must be really sick. She hadn't noticed that Yugi wasn't in school yesterday. It turns out he'd been kidnaped and the same person had tried to steal his puzzle. That was actually the reason I had called her yesterday, wasn't it? To tell her Yugi was in the hospital? I had gotten sidetracked, talking about experimenting with drugs.  
  
As I thought this, I noticed a figure in a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt coming my way. I assumed the figure was a girl, just by the way she walked. She noticed me too, and crossed the street, walking faster than she had before. Wondering if she was in some sort of trouble, I ran to catch up with her. "Hey, wait!" I yelled. She started to run. "Wait!" I yelled again. She ran faster, forcing me to do the same. Suddenly she stopped, clutching her side. Nearing her, I heard her cursing. ". . . damn cramps. . ."  
  
I slowed as well. "Hey," I panted.  
  
She looked back at me, her hood still covering her eyes, and turned to run again. She wasn't fast enough. I grabbed her arm and held her with one hand, and with the other I pulled down the hood, revealing long, wet, black hair. "Takara?" I was shocked. Taka looked at me again, eyes read, silent tears running down her cheeks. "Takara, what's wrong?" She pursed her lips and looked away. Pulling her into a protective hug, I asked again, "Taka, what's wrong?"  
  
For a moment, she stayed silent, but didn't fight me. "Derek?"  
  
I tightened my grip on her, as if I was afraid I would lose her. I really was afraid I would. "I'm here," I whispered in her ear.  
  
"Derek?" she said again.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Let go, please. You're cutting off my circulation."  
  
- - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - --  
  
Up in the apartment I shared with Duke (which was really big) Takara curled on the couch in a bathrobe and a warm blanket. She kept her wrist cuff on. Silently, she sipped her hot chocolate. "So um, Taka, what's up?" I asked her. She still looked sick, probably from running out in the rain. Her blue eyes looked tired, anxious, and frightened all at the same time.  
  
She looked side to side. "Where's Duke?" she asked. I thought she didn't like him.  
  
"He sleeps through earthquakes til dawn."  
  
"Oh," Takara said, relieved. Okay, so she doesn't like him.  
  
"Taka, you still didn't answer me. What are you doing out at," I checked the clock on the wall. "Three?"  
  
She took a steadying breath. "Remember. . . back in eighth grade, when Marik introduced us to drugs?" I nodded, even though we had agreed not to talk about it anymore. "Well, after we split up before high school. . . it wasn't the last time I saw Ishtar." I frowned at the mention of the one who introduced us to drugs in the first place. I remembered the pale-blonde Egyptian, seeing Takara eye him with interest way back in the eighth grade. Back then I had the biggest crush on her, but still managed to act like a protective older brother, following her around to make sure nothing happened to her.  
  
"Don't tell me you joined his crazy gang," I warned her, my grip tightening on my mug of hot chocolate. Without a word, she put down her mug and tore off her wrist cuff. She showed me the burn mark, an intricately designed Horus Eye.  
  
"Initiation mark," she told me as I stared. "For most of the others, it's worse. But me being a girl, I got off with only a brand. It's really deep," she added as I took her arm and studied the brand. "But Marik knew I'd be loyal, I guess." She shrugged. Putting her cuff back on, she curled tighter in her blanket.  
  
"He didn't do anything to you, I mean, with you, did he?" Taka was confused for a moment.  
  
"Oh..." she paused. "Oh! God, no!" She made a gagging sound in her throat. "He respected me enough. Even when he was drunk and beat me for whatever reason. . . he wouldn't do anything." She paused. "A few months before Aunt Isoda died, the day she went into critical condition, he wanted me to leave America with him. I refused. He said he'd come back for me, whether I wanted him to or not. I stayed at the head of his branch in America, but I disappeared when we were all supposed to come to Japan with him. Anyways, he threw this through the window a couple hours ago. I haven't read it yet," she added, pulling out a piece of paper. She was still shivering. Instantly, I was on the couch next to her, my arm around her shoulders. "Thanks,"she murmured, although her tremors didn't stop. She unfolded the note and we read it together.  
  
Takara's POV  
  
By the time I finished reading the threat, I was shaking more than I was before. Derek's warm protective grip tightened as I started to cry again. This meant I would have to keep running. Marik said if I didn't go back, he would make my life a living hell. Doesn't he know he's already done that to me?! "Make it stop," I whispered hoarsely. "Let me wake up. Tell me this is only a bad dream." Problem was, it wasn't. The paper was right there, on the coffee table in front of me, and Derek's warm hug was as real as anything. I wished that it couldn't end, that time would freeze right there, allowing me to stay in Derek's arms forever.  
  
"Taka," Derek said. "Taka, tell me the whole thing."  
  
So I did. I told him how Marik had used crystal as bait, and how after Aunt Isoda threw out mine, he got me more. I gave him a more detailed account of our relationship, although Derek hated that I had kissed that crazy psycho. I wonder why I had done that too. I told him about all the jobs I did, about hacking major banks and computer companies, mainly searching for his sister, who was his archnemesis. I told him about the months leading up to Aunt Isoda's death. I told him about the sleepless nights, about the guilt, about stopping crystal for my aunt. I told him about the night Isoda had died.  
  
I told him about my brother.  
  
"Call him," Derek suggested.  
  
"He can't help me," I muttered. "He wouldn't WANT to."  
"He would," Derek said softly, placing the cordless into my hand.  
  
Taking a breath, I dialed the operator. "Hello, operator? I'd like to make a call. . ."  
  
Seto Kaiba's POV  
  
I sat at my desk, typing on the computer. I was getting information on all the best duelists in the world. I kept glancing at the Egyptian God card Ishizu Ishtar had given me earlier that evening. Besides that, I was thinking about Takara, and how she knew we were twins. At lunch, I had looked through Takara's folder she had left at school.  
  
There were drawings of eyes all over the folder. There was one, weird eye that reminded me of Yugi Motou's puzzle. It was faded, as though it was etched into the folder and Takara had tried to erase it. I opened the folder and went through the papers. There were many drawings of kids I recognized from going to the orphanage on Tuesday.  
  
I reached the collage of eyes she was drawing on Tuesday. They were good. They looked real. The next page was a drawing of my eyes. MY eyes. The picture was labeled "Seto Kaiba." I flipped the page, thinking, 'What's with her and eyes?' At first I thought I was looking at another picture of my eyes. But it was labeled "Takara Isoda." This was when I realized why she had been studying me, looking up my profile on the computer. It also explained the weirdtimes when I heard her thoughts. Our eyes were the same. We had the same birthday. I quickly looked her up on the computer and found a copy of her birth and adoption documents, and found that we had the same parents. It was just. . .  
  
The phone rang, breaking into my thoughts. The ID read Devlin. Why would he be calling at this time in the morning? "Moshi moshi," I greeted.  
  
"Hey. . . Kaiba?" a familiar voice asked, in an unfamiliar tone.  
  
"Yes," I answered.  
  
"Kaiba, I mean, Seto, I need your help," the frightened girl said.  
  
"Why?" I asked, unconcerned.  
  
"Because," Takara replied, her voice rapidly going from scared little girl to her normal annoyed and hard-edged tone.  
  
"That's not a reason," I said. "Why should I help you?"  
  
There was a long pause. I wanted to make her admit out loud what I had found out.  
  
"I need to tell you why you should help?"  
"Yes." More pausing.  
  
"What if I don't want to tell you?"  
  
"Then I don't help." I imagined Takara biting her lip. That's probably what she was doing.  
  
"I need your help. . . because you're the only one who can help me."  
  
"And. . ." More silence. "I'm waiting, Takara."  
  
"I need you. . . because you're my brother."


	7. The first of many sentimental thoughts

Disclaimer:  Lil-Riter does not own Yugioh in any way/shape/form.

A/N:  Redone 11/10/04   These next few chapters are the ones most affected by my reworking.  I've combined some of the chapters, and deleted some stuff, and all in all like it this way better.  And remember, I'm trying to fit this with the whole Battle city arc, so don't mind if it spoils the show for you.

> > > Takara POV> > >

I was scared as hell of Marik, and what he would do. I wanted to run. Just to keep running, just keep going. But Seto promised to pick me up. At the same time I wanted to fight Marik and beat the crap out of him. His henchmen guys would probably kill me, and that would be if he didn't brainwash me with his Millennium Rod first. But still. . .

"Did I tell you about Yugi? What happened to him yesterday?" Derek asked.

"No. . ." We sat across the kitchen table from each other now, and it was near daybreak. I'd had my clothes dried in the dryer, so they were all nice and dry. I noticed, though, how Duke kept lots of pictures of himself hanging around. Duke's cute, I thought, but he's conceited. Then there's Joey, kind of cute, and very sweet. And then there's Yugi. . .

"Somebody tried to steal his Puzzle. Then Yugi got caught in a burning warehouse. He was in the hospital until late at night yesterday," Derek continued, cutting off my thoughts.

I thought a moment. "Oh. So that's why he wasn't at school?"

Derek nodded. "That's what I called you about yesterday," he said. I stayed silent. He played with his lip ring a little. I noticed that he does this whenever he's nervous.

There was a loud honking sound down outside. I jumped a little, and then recovered. "Duke won't wake up, will he?" I whispered, in case.

"Nope," Derek said, leading me to the door. "Still asleep."

Seto was waiting in a nice— not just nice, beautiful— blue Lexus with tinted windows. (1) He leaned over from the driver's seat to open the passenger car door. "Get in."

"Don't tell anyone about this," I warned Derek. "If you do. . ."

"I won't," Derek promised. I jumped into the car and pulled the door shut.

I grinned at Seto. I was still tired, remember, and my stomach still felt slightly sick. He eyed me warily, his expression impassive. My grin faltered, so I turned to look out the window instead, so he wouldn't see me depressed at this.

"So, Takara, are you going to tell me the story or what?" His voice was cold, the norm. I just bore it and grinned, telling the truth as we pulled away from the curb.

> > > Seto POV> > >

"Why am I so surprised to find you in such a situation? Although there is no excuse for your idiotic actions."

Takara sighed as I spoke those words while maneuvering around a tiny dirt path in my Lexus.  I'm surprised she let it go without retaliating.  She's normally into doing that.  Must be really sick, I thought worriedly, glancing at her.  Oh gods, I'm going sentimental, aren't I?

"Where are we going?" she asked finally.

"Oh, I have someplace in mind." I replied evenly.  We were currently cruising along the coastline, towards a seaside wood. 

Takara sighed audibly. "I take it we're not going to school." Air blew out of my nose. The closest thing to a laugh I ever got. "So you CAN take a joke!" Takara exclaimed. I ignored her.  Something, I don't know what, made me not want to kill her right now.  Whatever. Takara changed the radio station again.  I surprised myself by not changing it back to the prior station.  I glanced at Takara out of the corner of my eye.  She was going to be searched for, of course, because she's a minor.  Watching my sisters sleeping form, I felt like I was watching an older, less mature version of Mokuba.  I rubbed my temple with one hand.  How was I going to get Takara out of this mess?

"Call home," I ordered my voice activated cell phone.  I glanced over to make sure Takara was still asleep.  Like a rock.

"Moshi moshi!" Mokuba's cheery voice made me grimace. I wish I could be as cheery.

"Mokuba," I said, rubbing the back of my neck, "remember to get ready for school. I may come home late, so there might be a sitter. Be nice."

"But Setoooooo . . ."

"Not now, Mokuba." I commanded, then terminated the call. I drove in the silence for a few minutes, wondering what I was going to do next.  Takara had told me she was running from her gang lord.  Who did I know that could help with this situation? Finally, I said, "Cell phone. New call."

>>>Takara>>>

I opened my eyes groggily. "Seto?" I looked up at his face, intent on the road. I saw buildings flash past us through the tinted windows. We were close to the city. I closed my eyes, feeling tired and drained. Apparently, my brother hadn't heard me. 'As soon as this whole thing is cleaned up, I can go back to planning the tournament to lure out the other Egyptian God cards.' I sat up, instantly peeved.  I HATED those things. Seto didn't restrain me as I crawled back into the front passenger seat. He instead turned his concentration on not veering the car off the road as I stepped on his hand (it was on the gear shift.) I sat down in the seat, and glared at him.

Seto glanced at me. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I heard you," I muttered. I kept the glare in my eyes, but turned it to the near empty road in front of us. "I heard exactly what you just thought."

Seto swallowed, and glanced over at me again. "About..."

"I heard you thinking about Obelisk." I blinked. My voice was getting colder. Though still nowhere as cold as his. "I heard you think about that tournament you're hosting. The one you can't just WAIT to get to work on." My eyes were filled with tears of rage. He was putting this tournament ahead of me. He didn't care that I was in trouble. He didn't care that I was his sister. In fact, he didn't care I was in trouble with the guy who was trying to take the card Ishizu had given him. Or let him borrow, actually. No, all he cared about was getting back to the tournament. I mean, honestly.

One tear escaped my eye, sliding down past my nose and onto my lips. One big fat tear, leaving a trail down my face. I wiped my eye quickly with my bare arm, licking the droplet from the corner of my mouth. I glanced back at him. He was driving tightlipped towards our destination. It looked like we were nearing the heart of the city. There was more traffic than out there before, but it was still empty on a Friday. "Stop the car." I don't know what I thought I was doing. "Stop it."

Seto complied. I unlocked the door. "Stop." He grabbed my arm, holding it tightly on my studded cuff. "Don't get out." His voice was cold, but not as sharp as usual. There was a slight, uncertain, quiver in his tone, though I ignored it.

"Don't tell me what to do," I said, sharpening my voice. It broke in the middle of 'do,' but he hopefully didn't hear it.

"They're looking for you," he said. "That will make you an easy target. For Marik. You haven't told me what he looks like yet," he added, almost pleading me to stay. To talk so I would stay. Maybe I just imagined it. His hand gripped me hard, but I easily wrenched my arm out of his grip.

"Fine," I hissed, although I refused to describe Marik to him. With that, I slammed the door shut, crossing my arms tightly. Seto winced, but didn't do anything about it. Wise.  "What happened?  We didn't drive around for hours just to come back to the city, did we?"  Seto sighed fustratedly, turning another corner.

"You were out cold for a while.  You threw up in your sleep.  I had to stop and clean it up."  Seto made a gagging sound.  Good, like I cared if he was disgusted.  "I had business to attend to, you know.  So I did the business, and now we're back in Domino," Seto finished lamely.  My eye twitched.  He wasn't telling me the whole story.  I could tell.  I'm his twin, remember?  But I didn't say anything about it.

> > >Seto> > >

Takara had probably been totally out of it when I'd reached the meeting point, if she didn't remember any of it.  I'd tried to explain to her about the two detectives who, because they were good friends of our parents, had been tracking us since our father died.

--- Flashing back  ((creepy music plays)) ---

"I'm HUNGRY!" Takara whined. She grinned from her seat on the ground, leaning against the car, as I gave an exasperated sigh.  I walked over and squatted down so we could see eye to eye.

"Takara, we are out in the middle of the woods.  Takara, you just threw up your entire whatever meal you last had.  Takara, I had to stop and clean out the car.  Takara, I do not want to have to do that again.  Takara, I have no food on me.  So Takara, stop whining."  Takara yawned.  I couldn't believe it!  She wasn't even listening to a word I said!  Growling slightly, I stood up and looked around again, for any sign of Reese and Haylie. When I looked down, my sister was completely knocked out again. Takara, I thought to myself, shaking my head slightly.  Geez.  After depositing my sister's faint body into the backseat, I noticed a vial, one used normally for women's perfume, on the ground near the pile of dead leaves Takara had been lounging in.  I didn't smell any perfume on Takara before...  Thinking no harm would come out of it, I picked it up, uncorked it, and took a whiff.  It smelled like roses.  I popped the cap back in, and tossed it into the glove compartment.

((HONK))

I turned to see a crappy Honda Accord round the bend. It parked right next to my Lexus. I'd decided not to tell them I had my sister in the back of my car, glad I had tinted windows they couldn't see through.  "Haylie(2), Reese(3)," I greeted as they exited the car.  The two detectives stared. "Yes, I know all about you two. I know that you've been tracking my sister and me for a long time. And I know that you have something to give us. Or me. So hand it over." Haylie looked nervously at her partner.  Haylie was short, with strawberry blonde hair.  She was dressed in casual wear.  Reese was a normal sized man, still slightly shorter than me, with dirty blonde hair, and a trench coat with a hat pulled down to try to make him look "mysterious."

"First of all," Detective Haylie said, regaining her composure, "We need to know if you know where she is."

"Isn't she at school?" I asked lazily.

"She was reported missing this morning," Reese jumped in. "I don't think she's going to school if she's missing."

"I'll tell her that she's being searched for," I said dryly. "When I find her. Which should be easy. Now hand it over."

Frowning, the two PIs each took an envelope out. Of course there were two, one for me and one for Takara. They shoved them in my hands. "Now I think you should get back to Domino."

"WHAT?!" The male PI was red with rage. "IT TOOK TWO HOURS TO GET HERE!"

"And it'll take two hours to get back, so you'd better get going." I jumped into my Lexus and shut the door. I rolled down the window as I backed away. "Thank you, Reese. Thank you Haylie. I'll see you sometime. Hopefully not soon." I rolled the window back up and sped away, watching the fuming, cursing man amusedly in my rear view mirror. I put the envelopes in my front pocket with Obelisk. They were almost as important.

--- End flashback and chapter---

Whee!  Wasn't that good?!  One of my friends, Haylie, is planning to read this. So, for her sake, I'm adding little footnotes:

(1) Yes, this is my dream car.  A nice, marine blue 2005 Lexus GS 300 , or a nice, marine blue 2004 Lamborghini Gallardo.  The Gallardo is unrealistic though, so I'll settle for the Lexus.

(2) Haylie!  I'm sorry I wrote this character based on you without your permission!  I never really thought about the character since I wrote her last summer, but said you were getting a new fan fiction account, and then I went to update this chapter, I realized !!!  Sorry, she was also based on a TV character too, but she got the fact that she was short and (obviously) her name from you.

(3) Reese was taken from that show Malcolm in the Middle.  I do not own that. 

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go reupholster some more chapters.  I'm planning to get up to chapter 12 or 13.


	8. Blue Eyed Fairy

I do not own Yugioh!  AT ALL!

It's still 11/10/04, by the way.  I'm still reupholstering this fanfic, by the way.  The story has also gotten shorter, by the way.  Yes, I deleted all the crappy flashbacks.  And to think I had wanted to add more!  ((Coughs))  And yes, this is based mostly on the dub version of the show.  I haven't been able to get my hands on a subbed version of the show, but Cody Nelson's guide will have to do.  Plus, I kept the original end notes.  I have to warn first time readers, though.  This chapter leads into some of the most useless chapters in the world.  Here's the fic:

> > >Seto> > >

Takara was getting to be a complete nuisance. She exploded over that I was thinking about my god card and the tournament. I made sure that she had a room with cable and a bathroom connected. She asked for some paint or something, so I told her to place the order with Jack, my butler. I trusted Jack enough. I told Jack to get a tailor up there, to make clothes for Takara, then warned him not to say a word. I said I would be paying the tailor not to talk either. He nodded, and I went back to work. I called in lab techs to prepare a demonstration duel with my new duel disk system at four, an hour after Mokuba would get home, so that he could watch. Plus, that was a good amount of time to get ready. I finished the new rules, then sent the list of invitations to send to the blue haired typist.

I was still mad at Takara. Mad at her for getting mad at me. I ate in the kitchen, just a sandwich and milk, and turned on the TV. She was there, here school picture filling the screen. Of course they would've found her missing by now. I groaned. I had a headache. I used the intercom to phone Takara's room. "Moshi moshi," she answered, yawning. She must've been asleep, again.

"Call your matron," I said quickly. "Tell her not to worry or something. The story's all over the news."

"Well, I won't," Takara spat. "First of all, I won't take orders from you. Second of all, it'll mean bigger news that I'm still somewhere in the city. Kay?"

I sighed. She was right. No matter how annoying the media was now, it's nothing compared to the uproar that will come out of Takara's relation to me. And then if she really DID get kidnapped by Marik... I shuddered, thinking about what would happen. I groaned again. "I forgot, Mokuba's going to a party today." I shifted my feet, for some reason. "Oh well. I'll see you later, Takara."

I hung up and went to my bedroom. I picked up my duelist kingdom deck. I would be dueling a computer equipped with this deck. Blue Eyes included. I picked up the deck I was going to use against the computer in the test run. There was only one card missing. I reached into my jacket and pulled out Obelisk, along with two other things. Two envelopes. What the... then I remembered the meeting with the detectives that morning. I pressed the intercom button again. "Jack?"

"Yes sir?"

"When you go to give Takara her stuff, will you give her something else? An envelope. It will be taped to my door."

"Of course, sir." I hung up the phone, and taped Takara's letter to the door. I threw myself onto my bed and closed my eyes.

Happy Sweet sixteen, Seto Kaiba.

> > > Takara > > >

God, I was so TIRED! How long have I been awake?  Ack, my brain can't think. It's too hungry, which reminds me...

Knock on wood. No, not the figure of speech, but there was a knock on the wooden door. I opened it. Jack had brought me a full set of spray paints, cans of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white, and some other colors, that were in a crate. With it was a smaller set of tubes of the same colors, with four delicate bamboo brushes. He also had a full meal on a plate for me, and handed me an envelope. I have no idea how he carried all this stuff. "Thank you," I muttered.

"Madam Tikany will be up soon to take measurements for clothing," the old butler announced. With that, he turned around to go off... somewhere. I laid everything out on the bed. I placed the envelope on the desk. I would look at it later.

I sat on my bed, facing the wall, wondering what I was going to paint there while absentmindedly chewing my food.

There was another knock on the door. I sat on my bed still staring blankly at the wall. "Hello?" a timid female voice asked, a brunette head poking into my room. I snapped out of it and went back over to the door to greet the tailoress.

It took her ten minutes to take my measurements, then decided I should where a pleated mini-skirt. "I don't where mini-skirts," I told her.

"You will now," Madam Tikany said. "Master Kaiba said that you should dress like a girl, in girl fashion."

"I like girl pants and girl tank tops," I told her.

"And get rid of these," she said, ignoring me. She took out my three earrings in the left ear. Damn, that lady's fast. I didn't even feel her doing that. She attempted to take off my cuff, but I yanked my arm away. I hadn't even shown my brother the brand. "Fine," she said heatedly, dumping my three earrings back into my hand. I put them back into my ear, and went back to staring at the wall, thinking of what to paint there. The woman had slammed the door violently. I got the feeling that she didn't like me.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that Kaiba had taken my folder when I went home yesterday. I don't know why I thought about this now, at all times to choose from.

As I walked toward the bathroom, something caught my eye. It was a gold chain that had fallen out of the envelope when the lady knocked it off the desk. The envelope obviously hadn't been sealed. When I picked it up, I realized it was old. Years old. It was dated six months before my tenth birthday. May. I picked up the chain, and looked at the pendant. It was a small piece of onyx stone, beautifully carved into a 3-D Kanji form. Treasure. I remembered when I was in sixth grade, and the teacher had us look up the meanings of our names for some project.

Takara meant treasure. I set the necklace aside and took out a letter. It was old, on nice, yellowing stationary. A scene of the ocean decorated the top. I started reading it.

_Dear Takara, _

_If you are reading this, happy birthday. Happy... Sixteenth birthday. If you are reading this, I'm not alive. Hopefully you wouldn't be reading this at all. But I somehow have the feeling I don't have too much longer..._

_Let me explain. I am your father. You and your brother Seto were born while your mother was in... Not the best condition. I felt that it was best she raised only one child. So your Aunt Isoda took you on for me. I grew up watching your brother. I think he felt alone, seeking the companionship of his womb-mate. My aunt said you were like that too. I'm so sorry that your mother never had a chance to hold you that she never had a chance to know you existed. When you and your brother were five, she died in child birth with your little brother. Part of Seto's life was taken away, but the void that was left behind by you became filled by Mokuba. Isoda said that at about the same time, you found yourself a surrogate brother. A Derek from kindergarten._

_Aunt Isoda says you're a talented artist, and that you love to draw and paint. She even sent me a picture you drew of yourself and Derek. It's very good _

The letter went on to talk about other things, but I only read it with my eyes. I couldn't decide who was luckier, Seto for having our parents, or me, for having Aunt Isoda longer than he had Mom and Dad.  I heard a knock at the door, breaking me out of my thoughts. I wiped my eyes, and went to answer it.

**Normal POV:**

"Taka...ra. Open up." Seto's voice. Takara was glad that he had said that before she reached the door. She didn't feel like talking to him at the moment. "Please?" he added.  Takara placed her hand on the doorknob hesitantly.

Seto leaned on the other side of the door. Ugh, he thought. He had to cancel his demo with the new duel disk for two things: Mokuba's "Halloween party," and a business "Halloween party" that the blue haired typist of his had just remembered to bring up. Why didn't they have it on Halloween like it should be? Oh well, he was going to kick off the tournament at nine pm tomorrow, so he could test it tomorrow. "Takara..." The door was jerked open, and Seto fell onto the floor. "Oww.." he groaned. He looked up into the face of his evilly grinning sister. "Takara, I want to talk to you."

"There's nothing to say," Takara said, pulling back the foot that she had placed on Kaiba's chest. She walked away, going over to the bed and picking up a can of a dark, sapphire, blue can of spray paint.

"Don't use that on me," Seto warned. Takara gave her twin a weird look.

"You're paranoid." She proceeded to spray a blue circle, a foot in diameter, on the wall. The circle was surprisingly well made, perfectly round. She proceeded to use different shades of blue, toning it until Seto saw something.

"You're drawing my eyes?" he asked bluntly, getting up from the floor.

"**Our** eyes," she corrected. "Spray painting them.  You did notice that our eyes are almost exactly the same?" Seto had.

"I think they ARE exactly the same. What's the difference?" he asked.

"They just are." She picked up a can of black for the pupil. "Your eyes don't have laugh lines. Your eyes have worry lines."

"That's outside the eyes," Seto said, approaching the bed consciously, in case Takara decided to spray him anyways.

"You're eyes don't laugh." She sighed. "They're cold.  Hand me my folder?"

Seto realized that he had brought her the folder that he had taken the day before. He handed it to her. She took out a few collogues, all of eyes.

"See, Yugi's eyes are big and wide, and even though right here he's asking a serious question, you can still see that he has laughter there." Seto couldn't see it. Maybe it was just that his sister could read eyes well. "These are yours." She pulled out the paper he had seen before, with his eyes. It was the full area around his eyes. "Worry lines. No laughter. Your eyes are serious, bored, but serious. This was during math on Tuesday." She pulled another picture out. "This is me. I didn't draw it, because that wouldn't have given an accurate measure of my eyes. I asked Aunt Isoda to do this for me, before she was diagnosed leukemia. I was... It was just before our-my- fifteenth birthday. Over a year ago." Seto stayed quiet, and studied the drawing. This time he could see it. "Laugh lines surround the eyes, they shine. They look exactly like yours, but different." Seto looked up at Takara. They locked on each other's eyes a little. "Were you going to tell me something?" Her eyes drifted toward his neck, where a piece of onyx in the shape of the Kanji form of "sun" hung on a thin gold chain. She smiled briefly. Seto almost caught it, but didn't. He did, however, see Takara's hand go into her pocket.

"Takara, I'm sorry. About the tournament thing." He was, almost. He didn't understand why Takara had made such a big deal, but he didn't want to be fighting with her. She didn't answer that, but looked back at the unfinished eyes. "I was wondering... do you want to be in it? I know you don't have your deck, but I can see your matron about it tomorrow. Or later." She grinned.

"Of course!" she said, happily.

"Uhh... there's a costume party, later today, a dinner party, that my secretary didn't warn me about until just an hour ago. A business party. I couldn't think of anyone who would go on such short notice, except that you won't be doing anything. I've already told the tailor lady to make you a costume."

"Of what?" Takara asked, tucking her long, past the shoulder blades, almost unnaturally black hair behind her ears.

"A... fairy." Takara's mouth slid open. "Greek fairy." Takara shut her mouth. "Or maybe a goddess... I don't remember which."

"Greek goddess. I want to color my hair though," she declared. "I know a good brand of hair coloring. It should only last a couple days, and I can do it myself."

"What color?" Seto didn't know what else to say about her weird response.

"Blue," she said matter-of-factly. "The same exact color as our eyes."

Seto groaned. A blue haired goddess? He stopped groaning. That actually didn't sound that bad. He got up from the bed, and started to walk towards the door. Takara jumped up to follow him. "Well, talk to Jack about it." When they reached the door, Seto remembered something. "Here, this is for you." He handed her some dueling cards. "I don't use them. You can use them to start your new deck." He looked at her to stop her from thanking him. "Take care of them. These are three out of six in the entire world." With that, he walked out the door.

Takara flipped the cards over and took a look at them._ Blue-Eyed Fairy, atk/2500 def/3000 Type: Fairy Element: Light This fairy is the sister of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Because of they're different types, though, they are constantly in feud._ "Well," Takara voiced, "That is so true."

A/N: I felt like putting, "Quoth Takara, never more," but she and Kaiba are still in feud. I pulled that from Edgar's Raven, if you hadn't noticed. I decided on the party, cause all the stories I read, mostly Kaiba/Serenity fics, have him taking her to a party thingy. Okay, so not all. But I thought it'd be a good reason why Takara would be dying her hair later, and a good place for... getting to know each other? Whatev.  (And yes, I made up that card.)


	9. The Halloween party part I

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh

It is now 11/11/04.  This is one of those useless chapters I was talking about before, you know, the ones I don't really like.  I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them, though, so pretty much the only useless chapter that was deleted was the "meanwhile" chapter.   And… yeah.  That's about it.  Oh yes, I know the true meaning of "Seto" is strait, but I like the word "sun" better.

Normal POV: 

Derek glared at his cousin, who had gone back to twirling his hair and giving flirtatious winks to the girls passing them. "We going home?" He elbowed his cousin's side.  It was the end of the school day, and Derek was anxious to get home.  The station had spent the day interviewing people Takara had interactions with, and Derek felt he'd given them too much information.

"What? Oh, yes," Duke said, straightening. Duke looked for his cousin, finding that he was already ahead of him, still walking mindlessly. Duke scratched his head. His cousin had been spacing out more than usual lately. _Maybe it has to do with Takara being missing..._ "Hey Derek! Wait up! I need to ask you something."

"What?" Derek half snapped, half snarled.

"Uhhh..." Duke was rethinking what he was going to say. He looked at his cousin's angry green eyes. Silently telling him to ask his question. "DoyoulikeTakara." Derek was the only person that was able to intimidate Duke so much.

Derek nearly snorted.  "Do I like Takara?" Duke could tell that his cousin was about to make a speech. They were still walking through the now almost empty school at a painstakingly slow pace. Hurry up, Duke willed his cousin silently. It didn't work. "I like Takara. I more than like Takara. I liked her since I've known her. I've liked her since before I've known her." There was a pause here. Duke noticed his cousin's eyes narrowing as he thought of what to say next. "I've liked her since before she even became attractive," he said, giving a glance at Duke. "Which is more than I can say for some people..." Duke gulped. He was afraid of his cousin ripping him to shreds. "I've liked her for so long. I've been her best friend for so long. I was there for her for so long. And just when I mustered up the courage to ask her out, back in the eighth grade..." he swallowed. "Someone else comes and does it first." He was thinking of Marik. "I was there when she started drugs, I was there when she stopped them. I was there when she was an irritable, aggressive, insomniac, anorexic girl who took only vitamin supplements for two months. The two months she was on meth." He scowled.

"Are you sure it wasn't a drug speaking?" Duke's tongue was to sharp for his own good. The next thing he knew, he was being held against the closest locker, the lock digging into his back, by the collar of his school jacket. He looked again into the furious face of his cousin. "I was..." his voice faltered. He whimpered. He was glad that his cheerleaders had decided to wait for him by his car. Derek, satisfied that his cousin wasn't going to mention it again, dropped him to the floor.

"I'm driving," he stated shortly, already turning to go. Duke stood for a moment, shocked. He blinked a few times, and looked in time to see his cousin already at the end of the hall.

"Wait up!" he yelled.

* * *

> > Seto> >

        Sapphire blue hair, I mused. I wonder how it's going to look. I fingered the chain around the neck, the one I had received in my envelope earlier. Sun... Isn't that what Seto meant? I mean, Seto is the Japanese form of the Egyptian name Seth, which was the name of their first sun god. Am I right? I remembered what my-our- father had written in his letter to me. _I myself regret not having been able to meet her. _Why then, did he let her go? Why are you getting sentimental? Jack knocked at the door. "Come in," I said.

Jack came in and put a pile of clothing on the bed. "Madam Tikany says you are to be going as the Greek Apollo." Was it me, or did I hear laughter?

I looked again, but Jack had already left. I sighed and looked at the clothing. I had told the tailoress that I didn't care what I was going to go as tonight. God, why did that typist have to mention the party so late? Why was I making such a big deal about this?! _Maybe because you want an easy way to get to know your sister,_ a voice in my head said. Shut up, I thought. It was a dinner party, so I guessed that people wouldn't really care if I brought someone who... _That would be a problem_, the voice said. Go away! _No_, the voice said languidly. _Admit it, ever since that day that you met, you've known that she was a missing piece of the puzzle that is your life_. I refused to admit it, though I knew that knowing about my sister HAD filled up an empty space in my... some place inside? I wouldn't say heart. Hearts don't think or feel. They contract and pump blood. And meeting her, and talking to her, had slowly closed the gap in that... place. Now I was acting more brotherly.... I couldn't think about it.

"Nii-sama?" Mokuba's head popped into the room, even though I hadn't let him in. "Can I go to Justin's house before the party?"

"Sure," I said, barely registering his presence. "I'll probably be gone when your party is over. You'll have to call Manuel." Manuel was our driver. I guess I could let my car be handled by the valet.

"Thanks!" The small boy closed the door happily. I got my laptop and opened it. I had three hours left. I could do a lot in that time. First of all, I was going to fire that idiot typist.

------------------------------------------

"Takara, are you done yet?" I sat in the living room on the ground floor, waiting for my sister to finish dressing. As for me, I was wearing a toga with a gold tinge to it, reaching my ankles. I wore a wreath of something in my hair (I didn't know what) and a golden rope around my waist. Wait a minute, why am I taking her out tonight? Aren't the cops still looking for her? This was one of my few idiotic ideas. Why didn't I just turn down the invitation? I didn't even know who was hosting this thing, except that it was probably a good business opportunity. It would be at the Marriott.

"I'm done." I looked up. I hadn't noticed that she had crept right up to me. She was wearing a Greek toga, like me, but a feminine one that lightly touched the floor.  It was slightly blue tinged, with a gold rope that matched mine around her waist. Her hair, now wavy and blue, fell down to her waist line, individual locks curling at the end, with a few gold clips placed seemingly random through her hair. The color of her hair matched her eyes perfectly. It made the rest of her outfit, even the dark cord, seem plain in contrast. I think that she mixed the dye or something, because her hair wasn't just one flat color. It seemed to sparkle. An artist's touch, I supposed. I noticed that she wore many gold bangles on her left wrist. "Are we going?" I realized I had been gaping. _Admit it, you need your sister. _The voice had returned. _She completes something in you... something even Mokuba hadn't filled._ I ignored it. It wasn't true. I only needed to get past this little obstacle to continue with my tournament.

 "Yeah," I said. I smiled faintly, but regained my pose. Which car would I go in? I chose a nice, classy vehicle. Black Ferrari. Nice.

> > > Takara> > >

I loved my new hair color I had asked Jack to get as many shades of blue as he could find, and I carefully created a pattern for my hair. It seemed to sparkle, but I knew it only seemed like it. I smiled to myself, as we pulled up to the Marriott. "Smile a lot," Seto instructed me. "Sit up straight, and try not to act out of place." 'What are you going to call me?' I wondered silently. "I don't know. We'll come to that when we get there." He'd heard me.

I got out of the car, and I could hear the whispers. Flashes of cameras, reporters for fashion magazines? "Seto Kaiba's mysterious date..." I turned my head, and caught my brother tossing the keys to a valet boy. He came over and linked his arm in mine. 'Remember to smile,' he told me silently. 'Do you know how to work this weird connection?' I asked. 'No,' he thought. 'I only know when I can do this and when I can't. Smile, and pretend to ignore the cameras.' "She seems to be related to him. They have the same shocking blue eyes..."

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"Mister Kaiba," the host greeted us. I think he was the host. If this was a restaurant, he probably would be a host. "Your table will be table thirty. I will lead you there." Seto nodded his appreciation. I followed them, keeping my eyes averted from most of the crowd. I saw some costumes of the rich and famous, a peacock feathered woman, a samurai, a ninja...

I looked at our table when we were only twenty feet away. I'd been alerted by my brother's sharp intake of breath. A few figures were already seated there, two of them familiar. One black haired, green eyes, and one green haired, with familiar, also green eyes. The Devlins. The last people I really wanted to see.

> > >Derek > >

I looked around the room, taking in the costumes of other people. Duke had come as Dracula, and was intent on making the girl in red that sat next to him giggle. I didn't pay attention to what he was saying, although I did see him take her hand and kiss it. "Oh Duke!" the girl giggled. She was what, eighteen? Two years older than us. Didn't she think Duke was pitiful?! Girls normally think that about guys of that age difference... I had been, however, indecisive about a costume. Duke had forced me to come, so I wore a black cape and copied his vampire ness. He didn't care, though. I tried to ignore it when the annoying girl giggled again. "Duke!" she said, pretending to slap him. He whispered in her ear again, and she lit up. I have no clue what the hell he said, but I have absolutely no desire to find out. Then I saw her. Kaiba walked over, following the host, in a golden toga. I supposed he was supposed to be Apollo or something. Takara followed him, in full glory. Blue everything just worked on her. Even her beautiful blue hair. It sparkled. It made even the most beautiful peacock feathered lady here seem like a plain old potato sack. She was that glorious.

Kaiba took a seat, and Takara followed him hesitantly. She sat down gingerly into her chair, glancing nervously from me to Duke, then down at her plate.

"Kaiba!" Duke exclaimed. "My favorite person in the world!" He held out his hand. Kaiba didn't take it. He looked interestedly at Takara, probably not knowing who she was. "And may I ask who you are?" Duke asked, holding out his hand politely. Takara gave a split second side glance at her brother, then resettled her vision on Duke's hand.

"This is my cousin," Kaiba said. "Diana." I wonder if he did that on purpose. Diana is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Artemis, who was the twin sister of the god Apollo. Takara hesitantly took Duke's hand, which was instantly brought up to his mouth in a graceful move. Kaiba's lip twitched. When Duke brought her hand away from his lips, he didn't let go.

"Could I maybe borrow her, for a dance?" He continued to look up into Takara's eyes, although she didn't return the gaze. She continued to stare at her plate. I could hear the other girl, the one in the red, protesting for Duke's attention. "Would you mind?" He started to stand up.

"Yes I do mind," Kaiba said shortly, lifting Takara's hand away from Duke. Duke instantly started back for her hand, but Kaiba's fierce gaze made him back down. He almost whimpered. And I thought I was the only one who could do that. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Duke got up to dance with the other girl.

"Taka," I hissed at her, as soon as he was out of earshot. "What are you doing in the open so early into your disappearance?" Takara didn't look at me, but she seemed to silently communicate with Kaiba, and they switched chairs. Now we were sitting next to each other.

"Derek," she started. "This has been the longest day of my life. Being threatened, running, meeting you, calling Kaiba, all that seems so far away now." She looked up around her. "This seems so far away now." She looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. I wanted to run my hands through her hair. To kiss her perfect lips, to kiss away the tears I saw threatening to well up behind her eyes.

I resisted. "Taka, what did you do to your hair?" I made an attempt at conversation. She laughed though, and I could feel some tension relieved, even from Kaiba.

"I dyed it, duh. It's not perm, like yours though." She smiled. "And my name's Diana."

"Well, Diana," at this point, Duke came back and sat down, although this time without a companion. The chair that was there before was now gone for some reason. Some waiter probably came and took it away, as there were only supposed to be four people per table. "How did you make your hair such an interesting color?"

"An artist's touch," she said matter-of-factly. I glanced at my cousin, who seemed to be looking at me jealously. His look conveyed the message, _at least HER date isn't an overprotective boyfriend._ The message was probably helped along by the bruise on his jaw. Well, she didn't have an overprotective boyfriend, but she had a fierce brother, or cousin, depending on who you are. Someone gave a speech about thanking us for coming, than he called out the first course. All of my table mates were silent. This was going to be a pretty long night.


	10. The Halloween Party II

I don't own Yugioh.  I will never own Yugioh.  Only whoever owns Yugioh owns Yugioh.  It's not me.

11/14/04:  STILL reworking.  Almost done though.  only a few chapters left...

> > >Takara > >

The appetizer was escargot. I was particularly hungry, and the snail would look good to me anyway. It looked good to all the other people at my table too, apparently. After we all finished it, which took at most a minute (except for Seto, of course, and Derek who felt self-conscious without his lip ring), we started a conversation. That is, Duke and I. I'd say it was strained, but Duke apparently didn't notice.

"So where do you come from?" he asked me. Hey, he'd learned to give the other person a chance to speak, which would normally be an up-side, but I didn't feel like speaking.

"I live up north," I lied. "My cousin called me about this thing, because he didn't have a date. He doesn't like dating, though, so..." I let myself trail a little. "How about you? Where do you come from?"

"Heh," Duke gave a little chuckle. "I don't really think I introduced myself." I shook my head. "I'm Duke Devlin. I created Dungeon Dice Monsters." I smiled at him. "I moved out here because it was a good place for business. After all, this is where the famous Kaibacorp is, right?" He continued to talk, which I really didn't mind. It was just the way he looked at me that I minded. 'You feeling uncomfortable?' Seto asked me mentally. 'Yeah.' I tried to look interested in his story. But by this time he had gotten enveloped in telling his life story he was barely looking at me.

After dinner, there was a time we were supposed to dance. I excused myself and went over to the payphones near the restroom. I inserted two quarters and dialed Nari's number. "Hello?"

"Hey, can I speak to Nari?"

"This is she." I smiled to myself. I have no clue why, though.

"Nari, this is Takara." Sharp intake of breath.

"Takara! Are you okay? Are you alright? Where are you?" I knew it was a stupid idea to call.

"I'm alright," I assured her. "I wanted to call so that you would know I'm alright." I felt a person behind me.

"Takara?" It was Derek. He was talking in a whisper, because there were lots of people passing by. You know, I never noticed how much he and Duke sound alike. Nari brought it up though.

"Was that DUKE?!" I don't want to know what she was thinking.

"No, it was-"

"What are you doing at Duke's place?!!!" She continued yelling.

"It's not him, I'm not at his-"

"What are you doing there?!!" I sighed exaggeratedly. She wasn't letting me speak.

"Are you... you're not staying there, are you?" She sounded almost close to tears.

"No, it's nothing like that. It's not even-"

"You know how I feel about him, right?"

"And you know he's a jackass. Listen..."

There was a click and a tone. I blinked, tears once again coming to my eyes. This time out of frustration. I felt Derek's are snake around my stomach, but I suddenly twisted to look him in the eye. I hung up the phone, without looking at it. "Derek," I whispered in a low tone. "I..." I let air blow out of my nose. I was a little bit more than a little distraught about my fight with Nari. And I was getting a little more than angry. "Move, please?" He stepped back. Hopefully he realized his dangerous position. I stepped out, but I was instantly held in a death grip from behind.

"Takara, I need to tell you something..."

"Derek, not now." He didn't hear me, or at least chose not to listen. He buried his face in my hair. I could feel my face reddening.

"Takara... I..." He breathed in the scent of my hair. Okay, now I was getting freaked out. I really hoped that no one was looking. My best friend held me around my waist with one arm, and with the other stroked my hair. What was he doing? "I love you, Takara." He turned my face, to look me in the eyes. "I love you." My eyes filled with unshed tears, and I broke away.

"Derek, I'm sorry...I . . . I don't feel the same way." That was all I could say. I could feel the redness of my face. I looked side to side, and was glad that no one was there to see this. I took another step backwards. "Derek, you're my best friend in the whole world. You were there for me forever... and I . . . I just can't..." A tear fell. I turned and ran. Only a few steps though, and walked into the empty restroom.

> > >Seto > >

I sat at the table alone. Duke had gone off to dance with some bimbo, and Takara and Derek had gone to the bathrooms. Luckily, I was at a table that was pretty hard to get to, due to tables all around it. All the girls who wanted to dance with me would have to wait. Suddenly I felt a pull of frustration, followed by anxiety. Takara. I stood up quickly, making my head spin. I wove my way through the tables to the deserted restroom hallway. I entered, and saw Derek Devlin pounding on the door. "Taka! Open up!" Why weren't there restroom attendants?

"Devlin. What are you yelling about?" I stayed calm, and talked in my normal voice, no matter how much I was panicking inside. This had to do with Devlin.

"Your sister's locked herself in the bathroom." He stood up now, and was talking to me. A man who I recognized as the head of a major computer company passed us, giving us a weird look. 'Tell him to go away!' Takara's thought-voice sounded distressed.

"You need to go back to our table," I told him.

"I want to stay here." He refused to go.

"Go," I growled. I stared him down before he decided to leave. After he did, I knocked on the door. "Takara? It's me. Derek's not here anymore." There was a pause, and the door opened. The rims of her eyes were red, and her face had been splashed with water. Her hair had been put into a twisted pony tail, the rest still hanging past her shoulder blades. "Takara, what happened?"

She brushed past me, only saying in a cracked, dry voice, "Can we go yet?"

"Yes," I answered. I checked the time. It was ten o'clock. A little early, but if she wanted to... Your sensitive side is coming in again. That damned voice. I blocked it out, and led Takara out of the hallway.

What happened? I gave a sidelong glance at my sister as we drove away from the party. Takara's hair had been let down again, and she was twisting the ends of it distraughtly. When she lifted her hand to wipe her eyes, the gold bangles slid down her arm, revealing her wrist. And a burn the size of a quarter on it. I grabbed her arm with my right hand, swerving a little, but staying on the rode. "What the hell is this?" I braked at the intersection, even though it was a green light. I ignored the honks behind me. In the dim light I could make out the shape of an eye. The kind on Yugi's millennium puzzle. What did that mean?

> > Takara> >

"What is this?!" I bit my lip, feeling like I was gonna scream. I didn't pull my arm away, nor did I answer my brother. "What is this?!" Seto yelled again. I bit my lip harder, until I felt it bleed. Then I stopped. I still didn't answer. "What the HELL is on your arm?!" I clenched my teeth. I could tell that Seto wouldn't move the car until I answered. I could here impatient honks behind the black Ferrari. I didn't I didn't give a . . . Seto squeezed my arm. "Answer me. God damn you, answer me!"

My lip twitched. I almost smiled. But there was nothing funny about the situation. I smirked. "Branding. Rare hunter regulation. Marik did it." My lips twisted into a cruel smile. Marik had been everything to me. And now. . .

"Why did you hide this from me?" I turned my face towards him, and the smile grew wider.

"For me to know," I said. I wrenched my arm out of his grip, still grinning deviously, wanting to creep him out. "We going to sit here all night or what?"

The rest of the car ride was mostly in silence. Seto was fuming, and I couldn't stop thinking about Derek. I mean, he was my best friend in the entire world. I didn't want to hurt him, but I just didn't feel the same way. . .

"Takara, do you have any plans for tomorrow?" Seto asked suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

"Nothing. . ."

"You can't leave the house," he said. "It was an idiotic idea to bring you out here tonight. Someone could've recognized you. Of course, Devlin did, but he doesn't count. Anyone could've looked at you and said, 'Hey, she looks just like the girl on the TV except that she has blue hair.'" I didn't argue. He was right. "And I'm surprised no one DID say that. I mean, the chief of police was there. He didn't recognize your face. You were probably one of the most looked at girls in the room. The girl with the same eyes as Seto Kaiba. Probably will be pictures of you in the tabloids, fashion magazines, probably even newspapers. Pictures of you labeled _Diana_ Kaiba, Who is Seto's mysterious relation?" Again I didn't argue. "But I have things to do tomorrow. . ."

"It's alright," I said hurriedly. "I'll spend the day with Mokuba."

"No," Seto said. "He's never met you, let alone heard of you. How would you feel if some person came up to you and said, 'Hi! I'm Takara, and I'm all over the news because I ran away from the orphanage to escape my gang lord and now I'm staying at your house because I'm your sister!'" His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. I saw his knuckles turn white.

"You could've just left me at that cabin in the woods," I muttered, sinking in my seat.

"That cabin is old and moldy and made of bitter wood. Easily burned down. Who knows what you could've done?" I smiled at the thought of that.

"You're right." Another minute of silence passed.

"I think I'll go get your deck tomorrow. The police have been begging to talk to me, so I'm going to the orphanage tomorrow. Where's your deck?" He didn't look at me the whole time he said this, nor did he take a breath.

"It should be in the top drawer of the desk. Little tin box with a flame boy on it." Seto nodded, memorizing my directions. "Well, if I can't go out in broad daylight, can I go out at night? I have to watch your thing in the square after all. . ." And watch Nari's show. Nari was playing at this teen club (club for teens) on Saturday. Tomorrow.

"No," Seto said, still intent on the road. We were turning onto the hundred mile driveway of his. A thoughtful (at least for me) silence followed until we pulled into the garage filled with twenty other cars.

"Seto?" I said as he turned off the ignition. He looked at me. "I think I already said this, but happy birthday." Seto nodded, and got out of the car. I followed. "How was it?" I asked as I slammed the car door.

"Crappy," he replied cooly. "Very crappy. Just like any other day this week since I've met you."

I had nothing to say to that.

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---Takara's dream---

The memories of events only a few months ago resurfaced. Especially events on that fateful day that Aunt Isoda went into critical condition. The day Marik left America.

Mariks lips against mine was a bliss at that time. A hated bliss, but a bliss. When our lips finally parted, he searched my eyes, silently asking a question. When I finally realized what it was, I answered.

"No," I said, turning my face away from him. He had my back to the wall of the alley. His arms blocked me from running on either side.

"Come on, Taka. Don't you want to be with me?" I didn't really know the answer to that one.

"Yes," I lied. "Of course I want to be with you. But I can't go."

"Why?" Marik asked, taking my chin gently in his thumb and forefinger, turning my face towards his. Those hands that I hated. Those hands that had bruised me on countless occasions. And yet here he was, asking me to go with him. I looked into those beautiful eyes, and I knew instantly it was over. I woke up from my naïvity. This was the man that had nearly killed me on so many occasions. Nearly let me die at the hands of numerous gangs, drug dealers, and other desperates. And yet, until now, I pretended I loved him still. The illusion was gone, and laid bare in all it's (non) glory was the truth. He wasn't right for me. He didn't see what I did, though. "Don't tell me I need to use my Rod to make you come." I forced a giggle, like I would've done just a few minutes before, but it came out hoarse. I made up an excuse as quick as I could.

"I can't leave my aunt." His eyes narrowed. He knew I was as loyal to her as I was to him, but he still had jealous tendencies. "She needs me." I looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Alright," he said finally. "I still don't like leaving you behind, though." I smiled strainedly. He kissed my forehead. "I have to go now, love." He turned my chin up and gave me one last fervent kiss that I didn't return. "Keep this for me," he said, wrapping my fingers around a small perfume bottle.

"What is it?" I asked as he stepped back.

"Something I need you to keep," he said, smiling mysteriously and pulling on his cloak. He walked one way, and I walked the other, putting the bottle into my pocket. That was the last time I saw him face to face.

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	11. Takara goes to the mall for no reason

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh

Note: It's 11/14/04. I'm almost done! God, I can't wait. I think I'm ready to move on now, but I made a commitment, and I'll stick to it! So I'm going to spend another few hours editing the fic before posting it up. So yeah. Hopefully I'll get done today. Oh yes, this is all third person.

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Ugh. What did I do last night that made me so groggy today? Seto thought. Oh yeah. Took my _sister_ to that stupid party. Then came home and worked. What time did I get to sleep? Two? What time is it now? Kaiba checked the clock and groaned. Eight in the morning. Great. He had a busy day ahead of him. Ugh, he thought again. Where's Takara?

His eyes flew open when he thought that. Takara wasn't in the house. She'd disobeyed his orders, and left. He could feel it. He remembered when he had first brought Takara to the mansion. He knew it was a stupid idea. "_You're such an insensitive jerk, you know that?!" Takara slammed the door of Kaiba's Lexus. Hard enough to rock the car._

When he finished dressing in a new outfit, he headed to the door. But before he could reach it, the phone rang, as if on cue. He picked it up, and answered it in his cold and menacing voice. "Yes?"

"Hi Seto!" Takara chirped brightly. Kaiba groaned.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh nothing," Takara said. "Just, you know, heading for the mall. I kinda borrowed your car and like, two hundred dollars. That's not a lot, but it's good."

"Which car?" Kaiba demanded. "How did you get the cash?"

"Uhhhh... the blue Lexus. The Marine blue one. Not the baby blue one or the robins egg blue one. And the money is the emergency money that was in the glove compartment." Kaiba was going to say something else, but she interrupted him by saying, "I'm there now. Gotta go! You don't have to worry about me."

"Wait! Takara, I-" The click seemed loud and endless in Kaiba's ear. Ugh, Kaiba thought again. He picked up the phone, again, and dialed a number.

"Mister Kaiba?" a gruff voice said.

"Nelson. The girl with the long blue hair and blue eyes? Could you find her for me?"

There was a pause. Kaiba had never, EVER, asked something. He normally just ordered it. "Can do. Do you want her back here?"

"No," Kaiba said. "Just make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. If she does, yes, bring her back. She's at the mall right now. Blue Lexus." He hung up. Rubbing his temples, he hoped Takara was right. He hoped he didn't have to worry about her.

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Takara put down the phone. She checked her apparel, a pleated mini skirt and tank top. It wasn't too bad, but the color clashed with her hair slightly. Not too horribly, but it was bad enough to make her want to wince. Humming, Takara stepped out of the car, locking it with the push of a button. It seemed strange to her that she'd only been in Domino for a week...

She entered a store, and was browsing around the earrings section where she found a pair of dangling onyx skull earrings. They matched her necklace (sort of, in that they were both onyx,) so she decided to get them. She'd found a pair of small diamond studs and a new leather cuff too, with silver skulls placed every half inch. Five skulls in all. She looked down at her wrist and smiled. She'd painted a henna-like pattern on her wrist, over the burn, so anyone looking wouldn't be able to see it. Of course, the pattern only fell between her cuff tan lines, where her skin was paper white. She took a step back, to make her way towards the cash register to pay for her items, when she almost tripped over someone.

"Ahhh!"

"Whoa!"

When Takara regained her balance, she realized that she'd crashed into Duke. Of all the people... Tamara's thought never finished. "Diana! It's so nice to see you again."

Duke had taken her hand in his and was raising it to his lips when she snatched it away. He was really pissing her off. She smiled a poisonously sweet smile at him. "I'm sorry, but I kinda have to go pay for these things now. . ." Duke was undeterred.

"Here, I'll get those for you..." Some how she found that Duke was holding all the things she was going to buy. Tamara glanced out the windows and saw all the fangirls who were waiting outside for him.

"I think I can get these, thank-you-very-much. Don't you want to go back to your-"

"No, it's quite alright," Duke said, walking over to the register. He whipped out a credit card, and against Takara's protests, paid for her items. "Here you go," he said, handing her the plastic bag. Tamara blushed slightly. She really didn't need his help. But since she got it...

"Uh, thanks," she muttered, digging into her bag. "Here," she said, handing him one of the dangling skull earrings. His smile broadened.

"No, it's alright Diana, I don't need it. . ."

"No, take it," Tamara said, feeling a little annoyed at him. "I only have three piercings, and you came in here for an earring too. I can tell because your missing your earring..."

Heh, Duke thought. Wait a minute... "How do you know I'm missing an earring? I wasn't wearing one last night." "Diana" reddened.

"Uh, my friends back north taped your duels with Joey. . . Wheeler and Yugi Motou a while back. Remember? And then you made Wheeler wear that dog suit..."

"Oh yeah," Duke laughed. "That was fun."

"Well, they force me to watch it all the time, so I know you have this die earring. . ." She pressed the earring into his hand, feeling that she needed to pay him back.

"Oh, okay then, thanks," Duke said, putting the earring into his ear. When he looked up, Diana had put in her earrings too, and was slapping the leather cuff over her burn before anyone could see it. They locked gazes. Something about Diana was so familiar to Duke...

"Hey kids! No loitering!" the store keeper yelled at them. Tamara broke Duke's gaze, and grinned.

"Well, thanks any ways. I gotta go now. . ." She pushed past Duke, who grabbed her by the wrist. Tamara looked back at him.

"Why don't stay, Diana? We could, you know, walk around and stuff." Tamara nearly scoffed. Diana again. This kid wasn't bright, was he? Or maybe he was hanging around to many bimbos to notice that she was the same girl that had turned him down only a few days before. Thinking of this made Tamara feel sick again. That was the day she'd contracted her illness. She thought she had gotten over it. . .

"No Duke, I really can't." Tamara grimaced as she turned a pale shade of green. Gently, she used her other hand to pry Duke's fingers from her wrist. "Thanks for the offer though." She turned her heel and ran off towards the bathroom.

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Kaiba dressed himself up for the tournament, in black pants with buckles on the legs and a black shirt with buckles on the arms. He wore a white sleeveless studded trench coat that swept the ground. He studied his appearance in the mirror. Not bad, he thought. "Nii-sama?" he heard Mokuba inquire, breaking into his thoughts. He looked at his younger brother. "Can I go to Justin's again?"

Kaiba sighed. "Sure. I'll drive you, as long as you come home in the afternoon. I have somewhere to go today anyways."

"Yea!" Mokuba cheered.

"Wait, I have to do something first. Wait by the red Nissan."

"Which one?" Mokuba asked. "The tomato red, the ruby red. . ."

"The, uh, wait. The silver one." He had to have less of those. "Okay, then the silver one with black flames, red flames. . ."

"The plain silver one."

"Okay! I'll see you in a few!" Mokuba ran out the door.

"Why do I have so many cars anyways?" Kaiba muttered, dialing Nelson's number. "I don't even LIKE collecting cars. Oh yeah, because of Mokuba. . ."

"Nelson here."

"Any news on the girl?" Kaiba rubbed his temples. Tamara was a real nuisance.

"Ummm. . . well. . . the car got towed away. You'll have to come by with a spare key later if you have the time." Kaiba groaned.

"How did THAT happen?" he asked.

"Well, uh, mister Kaiba, the girl parked in the blue zone." Kaiba nearly laughed out loud. His sister was a real idiot, if she parked in the handicapped parking area. Of course, she could've done it deliberately to throw off Kaiba's people.

"Where are you?" Kaiba suddenly demanded.

"I'm at the car pound, sir." Kaiba groaned. He was afraid of that.

"I told you to follow the girl!" Kaiba yelled in the receiver. "I don't know why I bother with you if you can't even follow simple directions! Gawd, by the time you get back there, Tamara could be anywhere!" Kaiba was to angry to notice that he had let the girl's name slip.

"Well, uh, sir, can I ask you something?"

"You already did," Kaiba said through gritted teeth. Nelson took this as a yes.

"Well, uh, why is this Tamara so important to you?" Silence.

"DID I SAY YOU COULD ASK A QUESTION?!" Nelson cringed.

He waited for his boss to ventilate a little bit. "Just go find her."

Nelson was about to hang up when he heard Kaiba say something. "Gawd, stupid sisters," Kaiba muttered, a bit loudly, under his breath. He slammed down the receiver.

Now he had to drop Mokuba off and go talk to the police. Don't forget your sister's deck, his goddamned other voice told him. Tin box, flame boy, top drawer. Got it, he told himself. Kaiba groaned and slapped his forehead.

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Tamara washed her face in the ladies room, ignoring the looks from the ladies who'd heard her barfing. I am not god damned bulimic! she thought in rage. She angrily grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped her face a bit harshly. She pushed her way out the door, and tossed the crumpled paper towel into a trash can. She longed to go back to the mansion now, despite that she knew the car had probably been towed. Plus she didn't have her license with her, and if she HAD got caught anyways. . .

"You feeling better Diana?" Tamara had to work not to roll her eyes. "I actually don't feel like talking right now, Duke." She tried to brush past him again, but he got in her way.

"No, seriously Diana. I saw you turn green. I just want to know..." Duke had a genuine look of concern on his face. Tamara sighed. There was no easy way out of this.

"I'm alright. Must've been something I ate last night... I mean, the lobster WAS a little rich, and I don't go to those kind of things often." Tamara giggled uneasily. "I kinda have to go, though..."

"Why don't you hang out with me?" Duke asked. Tamara gave a little smile.

"Naw," she said. "I have to get back to the mansion anyways. Thanks for the offer, though." With that, she strode purposefully to the door, ignoring everything else around her.

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Kaiba checked his watch. He didn't really want to be at the orphanage. It brought back bad memories. It also reminded him that he wanted to go back to organizing his tournament, even though preparations were almost done. But there he was, in Takara's old room, walking around. Supposedly nothing had been taken from here since Takara left. Right, Kaiba thought, poking through the near empty drawers. He'd been unable to find Takara's deck, which disturbed him slightly. His sister might be a nuisance, but if she said something as important as her deck was somewhere, it should be there. But it wasn't.

"Mr. Kaiba." Kaiba looked at the door, where Detectives Haylie and Reese stood. Reese, apparently was mad at Kaiba. "Nosy, are we?"

"Just looking around," Kaiba replied cooly, in a tone that said he didn't want to be there longer than necessary. Then again, that was his default tone.

"We searched the entire room," Reese said, his eyes focusing unapprovingly on the young CEO. "There was nothing in here. We left every thing as we found it. We didn't take anything."

"Not even her dueling deck?" Kaiba asked, taking another look around the room and ignoring the older male.

"We didn't find a dueling deck anywhere," Reese said suspiciously. "How would you know she had one?"

"Well, she did participate in Maximilian Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom. Duelists that serious always keep their decks around."

"Well, it wasn't here. She must've taken it with her." Haylie took out a note pad and made a note on it. "Were you in school on Monday?"

"Monday? Yes I was," Kaiba said.

"Oh, by the way, you can take a seat. We have a lot of questions for you."

"No, I'd prefer to stay standing." He put down his silver briefcase though.

"Is it true that Takara had gotten in trouble for vandalism only on Monday?"

"Yes," Kaiba said, sitting down on the bed and stretching out on it. "It wasn't a true statement, though. Some porks, Tammy and Tommy, blamed her. I agreed because I hated her, but I knew full well she wasn't guilty of the charge. It was three against one, who would've believed her?"

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Note: This chapter is also where I introduced my muse, a blue-eyes white dragonling by the name of Bobby. He's named after Bobby Pendragon, from the series Pendragon by DJ Mchale. Isn't he so cute?

Bobby: Rawer!


	12. Takara then goes to see Nari

I don't own YUGIOH.

Note: Still 11/14/04.  In the original fore and aft notes, Kaiba made an appearance.  He didn't enjoy this fic too much, might I add.  The original end notes are at the bottom.

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The mall was unfortunately pretty far away from the Kaiba Mansion. She had two hundred dollars though, which could probably get her a decent bike. But she doubted she would actually find one. She walked down the streets, passing by various stores on the street. Clothes shop here, coffee shop there, card shop... Takara stopped and looked through the window. The store was closed, being stocked up on something in there. She watched as the store keeper placed big boxes in rows behind the counter. She wondered what they were for... she'd come check back later. Oh well. She walked on, brushing past people on the street, many of them suits with places to go.

"Watch it, kid," some guy said, roughly pushing her aside. She leaned against the wall, rubbing her arm where it felt bruised. She gazed across the street where a coffee shop was. Coffee sounds good, about now, Takara thought. Then she saw a familiar person. Short kid, tricolored spiked hair. Yugi Motou. She smiled and took a step to cross the street, but was instantly pushed back by a mob of business workers, late for their day(s) at Kaibacorp. When she looked back up, Takara saw that Yugi had transformed and become taller. He was also yelling at himself, in the middle of the street!

"Yugi! This isn't a duel!" Yugi looked up, and saw something that made him blush and stop yelling. Takara looked. Tea Gardner, who'd had guessed? In any case, she leaned against the wall again and watched Tea and Yugi enter the coffee shop. She was still bewildered though. Why had Yugi suddenly become taller? And what was he talking about anyways? Takara shrugged. Oh well, she thought. This left the Kame shop as a safe place to go for cards.

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"Hello mister Motou. Is Yugi here?" Joey asked.

"No, he went out with Tea today." Grandpa Motou replied, continuing to sweep the shop.

"Oh... yeah..." Joey said putting his arm to the back of his head, scratching it. "I forgot. I needed to ask Yugi something about English homework. Oh well, I'll come back later. Bye mister Motou!" He walked out the door, and bumped into somebody. "Oww... Sorry," he said, looking at the person he'd bumped into. His mouth fell open. He'd just had the luck to bump into the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. She was wearing a white, black collared T-shirt, yellow hoodie, and a black, white, and yellow plaid miniskirt. She had blue hair that fell down to her waist, and somehow her face looked familiar, but he couldn't place it.

"Ouch," the girl said, putting a hand up to her forehead, where they had met. He noticed that her wrist had a leather cuff with skulls on it. She used the same hand to tuck some of the blue hair behind her ear, revealing it as having three piercings. "It's okay," she said, replying to his apology. She ran her right hand through her hair, and let it fall again as she looked up at the boy she'd crashed into. She smiled at him, then tried to make her way around him to enter the game shop. Joey ran over to the door and pulled it open for her. She smiled at him again. "Thanks."

Joey followed her inside. He put a finger to his lips as he saw Grandpa open his mouth to say something. Grandpa smiled and continued sweeping the shop. The girl went directly to the counter and looked at the cards through the glass. "So you're a duelist, eh?" Joey asked her, leaning on the counter next to her. She looked up at him, surprised he was still there.

"Yeah," she said. She didn't look at him again, though, but studied the cards intently.

"Me too," he said proudly.

She grinned, still without looking at him. "Yeah, I know who you are. You're Joey Wheeler, the runner up at Duelist Kingdom." Joey smiled proudly.

"Yeah, that's me. How'd you know?"

"I remember faces," she said, waving the shop owner over. "Which reminds me, what are you doing back in here? I thought you were just leaving." She looked up at his face, but not his eyes, and grinned.

"I, uh, was just going to go when I remembered I wanted to get something else." Joey scratched the back of his head again.

"Then why aren't you getting it?" she asked as she pointed to a card she wanted to get. She smiled at Yugi's grandpa as he brought the case out. "Now shut up, Wheeler, I want to pick out my cards..." She picked out two Hinotama and a Tremendous Fire.

"A burner deck, huh?" Yugi's grandpa commented.

"Yeah," the girl said, picking out a monster. "I used a great one at Duelist's Kingdom. I beat the best beat down deck I've met so far with it." She grinned. "I got past four eliminators who jumped me, a couple duelists..." She pulled out her wallet and extracted the money she needed to pay. "Too bad I lost it..."

"How'd you lose it?" Joey asked.

She sighed. "I lost it in the coming out here. I have no clue where it could've gone." She shook her head mournfully. Grandpa Motou handed her the change, and she carefully put her new cards in the wallet along with her change. She closed the wallet, and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. She waved and started out the door.

"Wait a minute," Joey said, catching up to her. "What's your name?"

She looked at him for a second, judging him, it seemed. "Diana," she said finally. "It's been nice meeting you." She took another step to the door.

"Is there a last name with that?" He'd gotten ahead of her, opening the door.   
She paused. "No." She grinned. Joey noticed how beautiful her smile was, and couldn't help but think it familiar. . . "Thanks for the help. I'll see you around, Wheeler." With that, she brushed past him out the door and into the sunny street, turning left.

Joey scratched his head with one hand, while shoving his other hand into his pocket. "Joey," Solomon Motou called out, "you're blocking the doorway."

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"Where is your sister at the moment?" Officer Haylie questioned as her partner, Reese, took notes.

"I don't rightly know," Kaiba answered her. "She went out. I had a guy trailing her until then, but," Kaiba's nose wrinkled. "She threw him off her trail. Got her car towed. Parked in the blue zone." Haylie looked at him sympathetically, then shot her partner a glance. Kaiba was lounging on Takara's desk chair, while the male officer leaned against the wall and the female one paced in front of him.

"She's staying with you, right?"

"I'm not so sure of that," Kaiba said. "I mean, she is capable of running off again, and I get the feeling she doesn't even want to be at the mansion." Like I want her there, he thought to himself. He checked his watch. Ten. Great, nearly two hours since he'd arrived. Could he go now?

"That's all I have to ask," Haylie said, turning to get the door. Kaiba picked up his brief case.

"I don't suppose you'd know where Takara's deck is?"

"I don't know where it is," Haylie replied, holding the door open for the two men.

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Kaiba drove down the road from the orphanage to the car pound. He actually wasn't thinking about how he'd get TWO cars back to the mansion when he passed a figure in yellow, black, and white with blue hair. He screeched to a halt. He backed up a little until he was next to her. "Get in," he growled. "You're not supposed to be out here."

"I know I'm not," Takara sniffed, opening the door. "I was going home anyways." The word froze Kaiba up. Did she just call the mansion home?

"Yo, Seto? I think we're being honked at," Takara said, waving her hand in his face. Kaiba blinked and brought the road into focus. He had to try really hard to make the sentimental voice in his head shut up.

"We have to go pick up the Lexus," Seto said shortly. With that, he hit the gas.

After a few minutes, Takara said something. "Do you have my deck?"

"No," Seto answered, still intent on the road. "I couldn't find it. Neither could our detectives, Reese and Haylie." Takara bit her lip. He couldn't find her deck... that wasn't good.

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hours later.   
:::Kaiba:::

I strapped my duel disk on and checked it to make sure it was working. "Are you sure about this Seto?" Mokuba asked.

"No time for regrets," I said through clenched teeth. But I was regreting hating Takara. My cell phone rang, saving me from arguing with myself yet again.

"Kaiba," I said.

"Ummm, mister Kaiba, you're sister's gone." How in the world did Nelson know she was my sister? Oh well, I'd deal with that later.

"Let her go. I'll see her tonight." I hung up. I gave the signal to the operators of the machine. Okay, time to focus. I looked at the god card in my hand, and wondered how good it was. It'd better be good enough to beat Yugi, I thought.

"You ready, bro?" Mokuba asked shakily.

"I'm ready."   
----------------------------------------------------   
::Takara::

I walked into the "teen club." Teen club. What was the name again? I don't remember. Oh well. I was wearing tight black jeans and a blood red t-shirt with a pair of all-stars. I'd been able to get Tikany to get me that stuff. Did I ever mention that she's a fraud? I found tags on alot of the clothes. She's supposed to be a tailor for crying out loud! Anyways, I got there in time for Nari's performance. She stood center stage, with an acoustic guitar, holding the mike to her mouth. There were hoots and hollers from the guys, while I wove my way over to an empty table. I got there at the same time as a short guy with a beanie. The logo of his hat said "RR." I recognized him as Rex Raptor. I'd met him on the way to Duelist's Kingdom. I decided not to sit there, and instead took a seat at the bar. I ordered a sprite, and started sipping at it as Nari started.

"I wrote this about a friend." Her eyes scanned the crowd, probably looked for me. They rested on me for a second, but probably didn't recognize me because of my new hair color. Or maybe she did. But it was dark anyways, so you couldn't see much. (or at least I couldn't.) "Here goes..." She started strumming the guitar. Slowly at first, but than increased the pace until it was twice as fast as when she'd started.

"You/The accusing word I throw right in your face/   
You/The one I thought would always be right there/   
You/The one who showed me how to run the race/   
You/The one who said that you would always care/   
No matter what I did for you/You turned away and ran/No matter what I said to you/You stabbed me in the back again."

Okay, so I suppose being stabbed in the back again makes a better song than just plain stabbing in the back, but Nari was just jumping to conclusions. I mean, honestly. What did she think would have happened with Duke? I couldn't stand listening to her voice anymore, so I went around the room and got to the edge of the stage. The next few minutes stretched out forever. Nari was good, though. Finally it was over, and she thanked the audience and walked of the stage, handing the guitar to some stagehand. She walked right past me towards the exit. She was done for the night. "Nari!" I yelled. A DJ had taken up residence and was blasting the music so loud I almost didn't hear myself. "Nari!" I roared. She heard me and turned around. "Nari, I need to talk to you." She looked at me with a look of recognition, then went out the door. I followed. "Nari, it wasn't what you thought. I wasn't with Duke..."

"What do you mean, Takara?!" Nari yelled at me. We were outside in the alleyway, and the music had subsided to a dull roar from the outside. "I know what I heard on the phone last night."

"And you jumped to conclusions! Nari, I swear..." I crossed my fingers and held them up in front of my face towards her. "Cross my heart and hope to die..."

"And why should I believe you?" The temperature had instantly dropped 33 below. She fumbled and got the car keys out of her back pocket. I snatched them from her hand.

"Listen to me..." with that, I tore the bracelet from my wrist. I had washed off the paint, because it was drying hard and cackly, and it hurt, so now my scar was 100 visible I knew instantly what she thought of the burn by the look that crossed her face. It was a look of disgust, shock, and marvel. She touched it gingerly. I winced even though I didn't feel anything. I winced because I didn't feel anything.

"Takara," her voice in a scared whisper, "What is this? When did you get this?"

"It's a brand," I said, covering it up again. "You know, like for cattle. I've had this for... a while." Her face went softer. I couldn't stand this. One moment she's Ice Queen, and the next, she's melted like the Wicked Witch of the West. "This is why I'm hiding. No one knows except my brother and Derek. You heard Derek yesterday." Her lip quivered. She wrapped her arms around me.

"I'm sorry, Takara." She started crying. I felt like crying too. Damn sentimental feelings. (A/N: Just like Seto! heh. n.n)

"Listen Nari," I said, pulling back. "I've got to go now. I'll... catch you sometime." I tossed the keys to her and ran again. I didn't really know where I was going now, but. . . I hurriedly pulled out the keys to the red Nissan, looking down as I ran. I turned the corner and ran into someone.

"Hello Takara," He said as I looked up into his familiar eyes. "It's nice to see you again."

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Riter: A real cliffy! n.n (and I wrote the song myself!)

Seto: Stupidness. Stupidito. Stupid. 

Riter: Bobby, you know wat to do. 

Bobby: Rawr! (Chases Seto around) 

Seto: Takara's a bad sister. I hate her. 

Riter: Watch wat you're seying. . . ::Gives subtle signal to Bobby which Kaiba duznt see. Bobby fires at Seto again: 

Takara: I found out the name of the club! It's... (reads off paper) Claire's! 

Riter: (hisses) Takara, you're not supposed to be in the comments. 

Takara: I can be where ever I want. ::sticks out tongue: 

Derek: That's nice. 

Riter: AHhh!!! Where are all my ocs coming from! 

Derek: Your imagination. 

Takara: Read! 

Derek: Review! 

Seto: Aghh! 

Bobby: RAWR!!! ((Chases Seto))


	13. My not so good chapter

Reworking note:  11/14/04.  This is the only chapter that all I did was run it through spell checker.    It's also short compared the the last few, mainly because the last few I tried to make all about the same length, while I didn't want to change the last chapter as much either.  Second to the last chapter.  It was originally number 18, as you can see at the bottom.

* * *

Riter: Heyz ppl! First of all, thank you for all the reviews. I'd list all of the reviewers, but I'm, uh, a little lazy.

Seto: Lazy ass.

Riter: Bobby?

Bobby: Rawr.

Rai: He says he's tired of chasing that dude around. Wait, why am I here interpreting dragon-lish to you again?

Riter: Cuz Rednal29 sed so.

Rai: Stop spelling "said" wrong.

Riter: I have to spell it that way! It's like, my siggy! Besides, of course, my creepy smile, annoying habit of using "yeah" as a period.

Bobby: Rawr, grr, psh.

Rai: He said, Since my human is busy, I shall say the disclaimer.

Bobby: Rawry grawr, pthow!

Rai: Lil-Riter does not own YuGiOh, or the dolt.... What?!! Did you just call me a DOLT!?

Bobby: (happily) RAWR!

Rai: Why you little... (chases the dragon)

Seto: Since the dragon, translator, and Author.

Riter: My habit of getting hyper and spazzing out, creeping out everyone around me.

Seto: ...Are busy, I'll have to say this (however much I LOATHE saying it...) on with the fic. (gags and runs to find the soap.)

* * *

Takara

"Chaud," I greeted without looking up at the rare hunter. ((A/N: Okay, so I'm making up random names. Who cares?)) It was amazing how Marik, a puny sixteen-year-old, could command a grown man. I mentally slapped my own forehead. "I mean, I don't know who you're talking about."

Chaud was a pretty slow one. "You're not Takara? Wait a minute. . . look at me." He forced my chin up, and I ended up looking at his face. The punk was bald, just like I'd last seen him. His face twisted into a snarl. It was a disgusting thing to see, and my stomach was getting a little bit queasy again. The next time Chaud opened his mouth though, it wasn't him talking.

"Hello Takara. It's been a while." A robotic voice came from his mouth. "I've been looking for you, you know." Chaud's body stepped forward, making me back up towards the wall.

"Why the hell do you care so much about me Marik?" I spat, taking another step back. "You do realize I still hate your guts, right?"

"You sent letters. Lots of letters. I think your point was made." He stepped forward. I stepped back.

"One letter," I corrected.

"With lots of harsh words," Marik added.

"Oh, I get what you're after. This, huh," I said, fumbling for my pocket and pulling out the perfume bottle he'd given me so long ago. He made an unreadable face.

"You never opened it, did you?" Marik asked softly. He took another step. At this point I had stopped seeing Chaud's face and robotic voice. Now I imagined Marik, his voice, his face.

"No, I didn't," I informed him, "and I don't really care what's in it, so take it." I tossed it to him, but took another step back and hit the wall. Marik/Chaud pocketed it.

"You don't really get it, do you?" With that he lifted me by the collar and pinned me to the wall with his hands, so I was face to face with "Chaud." My legs dangled helplessly, and my stomach lurched again. My arms were suddenly incapable. I was really scared about what he was going to do. "You're really beautiful, you know. A very big distraction in my quest for the god cards." With that, he kissed me. I was pinned to the wall three inches from the ground, a guy I hated with all my might forcing his minion's tongue down my throat. I didn't know what to do. My stomach lurched again. And then his hands slid up my shirt...

And I threw up.

* * *

Normal POV 

  
"Dammit!" Marik shouted, banging his fist on the table. He wiped his mouth again. The taste of Takara's bile hadn't reached him, but the thought of it still grossed him out.

"Master Marik sir?" Odion asked consciously.

"WHAT?!" the teen snapped.

"Never mind," Odion said, not wanting to ask about what was bothering his young master in fear he'd get more angry.

"Waste of my time," Marik muttered, stomping off to the deck of the boat. He leaned against the railing, looking at the city lights in the distance and feeling the sea breeze ruffle his hair. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, wanting to calm down. He couldn't though. Takara's appearance was stuck in his head. Her clothes had fit snugly along her every curve, her hair had been longer than he'd last seen it, and a different color too, although he hadn't been able to make it out in the dim light. He remembered what it had felt like to slide his hands up her shirt. . .

Marik's eyes snapped open. Stop thinking, he thought. "Ra," he muttered, "help me keep my focus." The Egyptian God Cards, he thought. Obilisk. Kaiba. Takara.

Angrily, he spat into the ocean and returned to his room.

"Dammit!" Marik shouted, banging his fist on the table. He wiped his mouth again. The taste of Takara's bile hadn't reached him, but the thought of it still grossed him out."Master Marik sir?" Odion asked consciously."WHAT?!" the teen snapped."Never mind," Odion said, not wanting to ask about what was bothering his young master in fear he'd get more angry."Waste of my time," Marik muttered, stomping off to the deck of the boat. He leaned against the railing, looking at the city lights in the distance and feeling the sea breeze ruffle his hair. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, wanting to calm down. He couldn't though. Takara's appearance was stuck in his head. Her clothes had fit snugly along her every curve, her hair had been longer than he'd last seen it, and a different color too, although he hadn't been able to make it out in the dim light. He remembered what it had felt like to slide his hands up her shirt. . .Marik's eyes snapped open. Stop thinking, he thought. "Ra," he muttered, "help me keep my focus." The Egyptian God Cards, he thought. Obilisk. Kaiba. Takara.Angrily, he spat into the ocean and returned to his room.

* * *

Takara

Run. The thought pounded through my head. Run. I jumped into the Nissan and started the engine. Chaud and I had nearly choked on my puke, but Marik had let go of his control on the poor man, who'd fallen unconsious. Now, I commanded myself. Think of now. I pulled out of the alley and drove on straight. Stupid me, I thought, looking at the gas meter. It was blinking. Wait a minute. . . hadn't it just been almost full? Dammit! I slammed my fist against the dashboard. Some one had stolen my gas while I was in Claire's!

I pulled over, grabbed the leather trenchcoat Tikany had bought for me (so my style would resemble my brother's), and hopped out, looking around. I could see them, the rare hunters, in the shadows. I ran up to the closest, biggest, brightest building. Domino Museum.

When I got into the second set of doors, I collapsed on the ground and scooted as far as I could along the wall away from the door. When I hit a bench I stopped, hugging my knees and tilting my head forward so my blue hair fell as a curtain around my face. I kept on shivering, dispite the warmth inside the building. "Are you alright?" A semi-familiar voice asked. It sounded vaguely like Yugi, but not much.

"Yea," I lied. I didn't have to disguise my voice. It was already harsh and raspy.

"Are you sure?" I almost jumped again at Tea's voice.   
"Yeah," I said again. "I'm sure." I made the mistake of looking up and making eye contact with Yugi. My eyes widened a little in shock of what I was seeing. This guy wasn't Yugi. He couldn't possibly be.

I mean, yeah sure, he had the same unique hair and the same amethyst eyes, but they weren't really the same eyes. This boy's eyes were sterner, commanding more respect. Yugi's eyes were large and round and full of smiles and meekness. These eyes were... Plus they didn't recognize me. The eyes smiled, and I realized his mouth was smiling too. I grinned weakly. I glanced at Tea and stood up. Another thing different. He was taller. By about five inches. I still looked down at him slightly, though. He must be related, I told myself. "Thanks for your concern." I blinked, surprised that my voice sounded like Seto, but maybe that was just me.

Sure enough, he didn't recognize me. He smiled. "I'm Yugi," he said, sticking his hand out. I was... confused at this point. He was the same person, but not the same person.

"Diana," I replied, grasping it firmly. I nodded at Tea, and walked towards the back of the Egypt exhibit. Maybe there was a payphone or something.

"Come on, Yugi," I heard Tea say.

"I don't know why, but she seems so familiar..."

I was so busy listening that I didn't notice a white clad figure in front of me. "Takara," she greeted.

I stopped in my tracks. "You must be Ishizu Ishtar."

She nodded her head slightly. "You have been through much already, I can tell." I could tell I was turning green. What's up with me? Why am I so sick? "I know you're in some trouble with my brother, but it'll end up all right, I assure you." I smiled tentatively, and threw up in my mouth. Swallowing the disgusting bile, I asked her something.

"Me and my brother... do you think things are alright there?" Ishizu thought for a moment.

"He doesn't accept you now, and he will eventually destroy the cards he gave you. But in the end, things will be all right between you and him." I nodded, feeling my stomach lurch again. "The restroom is over there," she said pointing. "And when you're done, here's a quarter to call your brother." I nodded my thanks, gripping the quarter tightly as I ran to the restrooms.

* * *

Riter: Yea! the end of Chapter 18! Not my best chapter ever, but.... I've almost hit the twenty mark, but I'm still no where near the end of the fic. 

Rai: Wait, you mean you're not even half way done here?!

Riter: Nope. The story's sposed to overlap battle city, remember? Kaiba hasn't even anounced it in the plaza. Now shut up. I have to tell people to review.

Rai: Why should I?

Riter: ((Smiles evilly))

Rai: ((Shudders)) alright. I'll shut up.

Riter: Good! Plz review! If you didn't like the chapter, plz tell me! and read the story first!


	14. Last pretournament chapter

Reworking note: 11/14/04.  This is the last chapter.  It was originally number 19, but I compressed some chapters while I was reworking it, and now it's chapter 14.  Again, like last chapter, all I did was run this through spell check.  Same fore and aft notes.

* * *

Rai: ((pokes head onto stage)) Yes! The witch is gone!! ((Does a little happy dance))

Riter: ((Runs on stage sobbing and crashing into Rai)) I thought I was being so ORIGINAL!

Rai: What?!!

Riter: ((Continues sobbing)) First of all, I guessed that Kaiba having an OC as a sister wasn't too original, but then I named her Takara, which I guessed no one else had named someone. Then I happened to come across a story of Kaiba falling in LOVE with a girl with that name!!! And then, I thought the whole gang thing wouldn't be overused, but it had been used a lot before! And I feel really really.... UNORIGINAL! WAH!!!!!!!!!! Plus I am getting sick of the story. It's getting really long, and I'm not sure if I should even have her be a duelist in the tournament...

Rai:... Why am I holding you? ((Drops authoress onto the floor))

Riter: Oh well I guess I should ((sniff) go on with the fic... Hi people! I got my fourth review! I've almost hit the twenty mark, and I'm not anywhere near the end of the fic. I might end up making a minisiries of it. 

Rai: Didn't you already say this? 

Riter: Yeah, but I wanted to sey that I know what I'm doing with it now. It willl be a two part, maybe three part. This is gonna be the last pre tournament chapter. Takara finally meets Mokuba! So anyways, thank you to all of my reviewers ever:

Hutcy, NeferNeferi, Shadoewe, Zelia Theb, Archery-Princess57, YugiFreak, Saiyan Brat878, Tamir, MarikzGal4eva, Kaiba dude 101, Yugi4ever, kaiba's run-away bride5, Rednal29, squekiemonkey7, karina, punkrocker13..... and I think that's it. Oh, and maybe **X-mas Gurl**, cuz she put me on her author's list, but I'm not even sure if she even reads my stories, cuz she's never even reviewed me. 

Bobby: Rawar grrr psh shaw!   
Rai: I refuse to translate.   
Riter: ((Glares menacingly))   
Rai: ((shudders)) Okay, fine. The dragon says that his wonderful human Lil-Riter does not own anything Yugioh related. She does not own the dork- who- can- talk- dragonling- with- white- eyes or me.   
Riter: Thank you.

and I think that's it. Oh, and maybe , cuz she put me on her author's list, but I'm not even sure if she even reads my stories, cuz she's never even reviewed me.Bobby: Rawar grrr psh shaw!Rai: I refuse to translate.Riter: ((Glares menacingly))Rai: ((shudders)) Okay, fine. The dragon says that his wonderful human Lil-Riter does not own anything Yugioh related. She does not own the dork- who- can- talk- dragonling- with- white- eyes or me.Riter: Thank you.

* * *

  
Takara

I found myself in the plaza, wondering what I was doing. I looked at all the duelists around me, milling around, greeting each other. Rex Raptor, Weevil Underwood, Mako Tsunami, tons of other people . . . Yugi and Tea. Six feet away. I jumped behind a bush and hid. I spied through the branches in the bush (are they called branches?) as a duelist I knew as Mai Valentine (who I'd lost two starchips to on Duelist Kingdom) ran up to them and started choking Tea. I stifled a laugh, and turned away. The Kaiba corp building wasn't too far away. Or so I hoped. But then the video came on. 

"Welcome duelists," Seto's voice started. I edged around the crowd of people as my brother's voice boomed across the plaza, introducing the dueling disks and so on. 

'I wonder if Yugi's there.' I stopped in my tracks. Of course he's here. I just saw him. Oh shit. It's Seto, I realized. Hopefully he hadn't heard what I thought. 'I did, Takara,' Seto replied. '128 main.' Before I could reply, the copter flew down, and there was Seto, hanging out the door. "Don't forget to register and pick up your duel disks," he said. I didn't hear the rest of his sentence because I was too busy watching his eyes search for me, or for Yugi. They rested on me, then slid over to where Yugi stood. Silently they challenged each other. Disgusted at my brother, I decided to get to "128 Main" as fast as I could.   
  
Normal POV   
  
"Who's that?" Mai asked as the girl with bright blue hair bolted, barely missing people in her haste to get out of the plaza. 

"Isn't that Diana?" Tea added. 

"I think so. But why is she running?" Yami asked. He watched as her dangling earring flew off, and she quickly brought up her hand to catch it. Diana clutched it tightly in her hand as she started down Main Street. 

Seto

128 Main was the exit of Kaibacorp's parking building. Where I hoped to meet Takara. I hoped she wasn't in any trouble. Waiting by my black Mercedes in the parking lot was... Mokuba. 

"Mok, what are you doing here?" I asked. 

"You didn't notice me in the car?" Mokuba pouted. 

"Get in." I slid behind the driver's wheel while Mokuba took the passenger seat. It was actually illegal for him to be up there, but oh well. Eleven's as old as thirteen. I actually forgot about my sister until I had driven out of the building and almost ran her over. 'Holy Shit, Seto. What the hell are you thinking?' 

"Woah," Mokuba voiced as I unbuckled my seat belt and got out. 

Takara

"Running around is not a good idea in your position," Seto told me coldly. "Something could've happened Marik could've found you." He did, I thought to myself sullenly. "Where were you?"   
"Why do you care?" I asked leaning against the car, putting in my skull earring (which I had been trying to put on while running before Seto interrupted me). I instantly stood up, feeling a pair of eyes on me. I glanced inside. A boy, ten I'd guess, was sitting in the passenger seat. Studying me with interest. "I see that you brought along our brother." Seto glanced inside then back at me. "It's funny. I don't think you've ever mentioned him. I wonder why? Aunt Isoda told me that he was the only family you had." Seto glared at me. I'd noticed that he did that to cover if he didn't have anything to say. Which was rare. "Did anyone ever tell you you have big ears?" 

Seto growled and ordered me to take the back seat. "You're explaining," he said, opening his own door.

* * *

Ladi dadi dah . . . Press the fast forward button . . . and now we are at Saturday again. Halloween is no importance to this story, and the Takara Isoda case had died down a little. Takara of course DID feel a little bit guilty for making the matron worry and stuff. But she also compiled a new deck (fairy based this time) and completed painting a wall in her room. Saturday Morning: 

Seto

This is it. The day of my tournament, I thought. I was waiting by the main stairs for Mokuba when Takara comes in a blood red t-shirt, black pants, and black trench coat (mocking my own style). She was wearing a dueling disk. "Where do you think you're going?" She looked surprised at me. 

"Battle city, of course." By now I'd learned that there was no controlling Takara with mere words or mere force. If she wanted to do something, she did it. There was absolutely no room for arguing. So I didn't. Takara's hair dye had washed out a little, so her hair only glinted blue in the sunlight. At the moment she was pulling it all back, as if to put it in a pony tail. But instead she pulled on a black beanie with a grey flame design. Somehow this made her look totally different. "We going?" 

"Yeah. Just a second." I ran up to Takara's room, and braced myself to open the door. When I did, I stood in awe. The room was vast, I'd admit, compared to most bedrooms. This meant she had a lot of room to paint on. But what she painted was something I wasn't entirely ready for. 

The background was a swirl of violet and blue, carefully and meaningfully swirled. Takara, I'd found out over the week, was very precise about every thing in her art. I had found out, because when I had accidentally smudged a centimeter square of it, Takara had gone ballistic, claiming that it had disrupted the entire mood of the painting. On closer inspection (without touching the wall,) I could see that she hadn't fixed it. In the upper left hand corner was a detailed painting of my Blue Eyes White Dragon in flight, it's wings beating at the air. Its blue eyes were focused down towards the lower right hand corner, where the Blue Eyed fairy stood, wings folded over her bare white skin. Her ash blonde hair swept to the side, revealing her face and her bright blue eyes that looked right back up at her brother. In the center of it all was what Takara had started only last Friday. I must admit, she has great talent. Somehow she was able to create the illusion of one pair of eyes overlapping the other. And I couldn't even tell who's eyes overlapped who's. Mainly because they were basically the same. They were our eyes. 

"You like?" a familiar voice asked behind me. Takara of course. 

"Of course I do. It features me, doesn't it?" I turned around and exited the room. I walked down the hall, but stopped by the stairs to turn back to her as she shut the door of her room. "Takara?" 

"Yeah?" 

"What's it called?" Takara seemed to think about this thoroughly as she rejoined me by the stairs. 

"Blue Eyes," she said simply. 

"Hurry up guys!" Mokuba yelled up the stairs at us. "We're gonna be late!"

Takara gave me a sidelong look and a grin, practically bouncing down the stairs. 'I'm ready for anything,' she assured me. Sighing in defeat, I followed.

* * *

I think this is where Blue Eyes gets cut off.   
Rai: This wouldn't be happening if you'd only written longer chapters.   
Riter: I don't get your logic.   
Bobby: Rawarr.   
Rai: See? Your dragon agrees.   
Riter: Whatever.   
Rai: Wait, that means I can go now, right?   
Riter: Nope!   
Rai: WHAT?!! ((Anime fall))   
Riter: You're sticking with me for the sequel.

Rai: NOOOO!!!!!

So anyways, I am having a vote. Who wants to see (or read) Takara dueling in a tournament? Or should I just go skip to the finals? Cuz thats where alot of stuff happens. Review pleaz peopl! and vote!


End file.
